Flydubai co-pilot began radicalisation in Australia, UAE prosecutors say

The co-pilot of a flydubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv who attempted to hijack the plane last week had begun to drift towards extremism nearly 10 years ago while studying in Australia. According to UAE prosecutors, Hammam al-Hammami, a 29-year-old Omani national, had been radicalised through reading extremist literature and following online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide attacks.

Al-Hammami's alleged attempt to hijack the plane on September 30, which had 182 people onboard, was thwarted by passengers and crew. The UAE Attorney General, Hamad Saif Al Shamsi, alleged that Al-Hammami was trying to take control of the plane to crash it into Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport in a "suicide attack". Al Shamsi also stated that Al-Hammami had been inspired by Al Qaeda's September 11 attacks in New York.

Al-Hammami had used two previous trips to Tel Aviv to plan the attack, according to the prosecutor. During the flight, he used an emergency axe to attack the plane's Indian captain, Smit Machchhar, but was subdued by passengers. The incident prompted an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia, and the passengers were repatriated on a second flydubai flight hours later.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Guardian Australia, ABC News AU, Free Malaysia Today, Japan Today, Daily Times — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.