A Somali refugee, whose attempted hijacking of a New Zealand flight at knife-point left terrified passengers and crew fearing for their lives, was yesterday sentenced to nine years in jail.
Asha Ali Abdille, 36, had pleaded guilty to the attempted hijacking of a 19-seat aircraft on a domestic flight and trying to force the pilot to fly to Australia.
In the Christchurch High Court in the South Island, Justice Christine French jailed Abdille for nine years with a non-parole period of six years.
The court heard how Abdille took three knives on board a flight from Blenheim to Christchurch in February 2008 and used one to cut the pilot.
She demanded he fly to Australia, but when he said they did not have enough fuel, she suggested they fly into the sea.
When the plane landed at Christchurch, Abdille was overpowered by the pilot and first officer.
The pilot received cuts to both hands and needed extensive surgery to reattach muscles, tendons and a nerve. He was also cut on his back. The first officer was cut on his foot and a passenger was also wounded. A depositions hearing in December 2008 was told Abdille wanted to either hijack the plane to Australia or crash and kill everyone on board.
The pilot, whose name was suppressed, told the hearing he feared all on board were going to die after the woman said she had a bomb in her bag.
“I had serious concerns for the safety of myself, the first officer, all the passengers and the airplane,” the pilot said.
“I started talking to her about her family and this seemed to calm her down. She would be ranging from calm to tearful and then become aggressive,” the pilot said. “She said at one stage that we were all going to die.”
At the sentencing, defense lawyer Elizabeth Bulger read an emotional statement from Abdille, telling the story of her life and her difficulties.
Abdille said she was from a family of 17 children who had to flee Mogadishu when the civil war erupted in 1991.
She told of being with her grandfather when he was chopped to pieces by bandits and also told of the dangers and violence in refugee camps before she arrived in New Zealand without her family in 1994.
While in New Zealand, Abdille had a number of convictions including threatening to pour gasoline on a Red Cross member and throwing a bucket of feces over a police officer.
A doctor assessed that at the time of the hijacking she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a major depressive episode.
French said there were no sentencing guidelines because it was the first hijacking in New Zealand, but the lawyers had made submissions about overseas cases in which the penalties ranged from five to 25 years.
She said the starting point for sentencing for the attempted hijacking was 15 years, but Abdille’s guilty plea and background of mental health issues were taken into account, reducing it to nine years.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS