A man who hijacked a Mexican plane is a singing evangelical minister, marksman and martial arts whiz whom friends nicknamed “Crazy” as he turned to religion to escape a life of drug addiction and petty theft.
Bolivian-born Jose Mar Flores, 44, set off a national security alert on Wednesday when he hijacked a plane flying from Cancun to Mexico City. He wielded a Bible and fruit juice cans filled with earth and bound with silver tape and wires to look like bombs.
The AeroMexico plane landed safely and all on board escaped unhurt after a senior crew member reasoned with Flores, who read from his Bible, wept, prayed and said he needed to warn Mexican President Felipe Calderon of an impending earthquake.
“I love this nation, I love God’s people. I want us to pray because tremendous things are ahead,” Flores told reporters after his arrest. “There is only one way to avoid it — by uniting, by crying out wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever our religion, by begging God for this not to happen.”
Mexican Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna said Flores told police he picked the attack for Sept. 9, 2009, because the date 9-9-9 is the inverse of 6-6-6, a number associated with the devil, and that the Holy Spirit accompanied him on his mission. He has yet to be charged.
Worshipers at Flores’ evangelical church near the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca said he was gifted at healing the sick, and neighbors described him as quiet and respectful.
But Internet video footage shows a bizarre character with an obsession for cowboy-style gun tricks and martial arts. Friends nicknamed him “Crazy Flores,” the daily Reforma said.
In one video clip, Flores shows off pistol-spinning skills, does some tricks with nunchucks — fighting sticks joined by a chain — then tosses a coin in the air and shoots it, dramatically falling down afterward and rolling on the ground.
He then shoots a hole through his wallet and inspects the damaged banknotes inside.
Flores is then shown under a plastic sheet in a boat in a deep canyon in southern Mexico begging God to stop a raging storm. When the weather clears, he tosses his gun into the river and throws his arms in the air as friends applaud.
“I was the meanest shot in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. But Christ showed himself to be all-powerful,” Flores tells worshipers in a sermon about the incident that was also filmed.
“I promised Jehovah that never again in my life would I pick up a gun,” he says, addressing a crowded arena from a stage filled with plants and conga drums.
Flores’s wife, Elizabeth Melgar, apologized for the hijack of the plane and said he only wanted to get the media’s attention about a dangerous earthquake he believed would soon hit.
“He just wanted to be listened to,” she told reporters. “Only time will tell if it was truly God who sent him.”
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