The bloody hijacking of 1978 at Larnaca airport

Today's hijacking is reminiscent of a much more serious and bloody incident, which happened again in Larnaca 38 years ago.

In February 1978, two Arab guerrillas seized an aircraft in Larnaca. Egyptian commandos tried to retake the ship, but without permission from the Cypriot authorities, while negotiations with the hijackers continued.

The Cypriot National Guard resisted, resulting in a 45-minute battle in which 17 Egyptians were killed.

Cyprus became for a few days the theater of political controversy in the Middle East, that is, of the Arab-Israeli confrontation.

The hijacking in February 1978 followed the assassination of Egyptian diplomat Youssef El Sebay, which ended in a bloody battle between the Cypriot National Guard and Egyptian commandos who attempted to attack the aircraft without permission.

This case, which led to a serious test of Nicosia-Cairo relations, was not the first or the last to take place on the island. But it was the most characteristic and most serious, since its ending had the most dead with the issue taking on political dimensions.

As the director of the Cyprus Center for Studies Christos Iakovou had pointed out, after this event, the excellent diplomatic relations between Cyprus and Egypt were suspended for four years, in a period of increased need for diplomatic support due to the Turkish invasion.

At the same time, Cyprus has been criticized, especially by the United States, for inadequate measures to both prevent and suppress terrorism. A few months after the Egyptian attack, the decision was made to create the MMAD. Particularly important, however, according to Mr. Iakovou, is the fact that it proved that Cyprus could easily become a field for resolving Arab-Israeli or even intra-Arab disputes, with negative effects on foreign policy. Finally, as he states, the Republic of Cyprus, with its decision to get involved militarily after the attack of the Egyptian commandos developed, the only, and most important, that it managed to save was the non-questioning of its sovereignty.

The events of El Sebay's murder

On Saturday, February 18, 1978, at 10 am, the second day of the 6th Session of the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement (AAPSO) began at the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia. 64 of the 80 delegates were in the conference room.

According to Mr. Iakovou, there was no large police force in the hotel beyond the usual guard for such cases. At 11:15 a.m., Youssef El Sebay, the Movement's president, got out of his room and headed for the kiosk, with the hotel's books and newspapers. There he was shot by two Palestinians, Sami Qatar, a Jordanian passport holder, and Ziyad Ali, a Kuwaiti passport holder. No eyewitnesses were present at the time of the murder.

The two Palestinians, holding revolvers and grenades, then proceeded to the conference room and, after disarming the two plainclothes police officers, held the 64 delegates present hostage. V. Lyssaridis, who was then vice-president of the Movement, took on the role of mediator and interpreter.

The hostages, including Interior Minister Chr. Benjamin, transported from the Hilton to Larnaca.

Initially, the two Palestinians demanded to speak to the president, who was absent in Athens. They then announced to the hostages that they had killed Sebay because he accompanied Anwar Sadat on his recent trip to Israel, which is why he was considered a traitor. In the meantime, the Minister of Interior and Defense Chr. Benjamin. Following the minister's communication with the two Palestinians, the hostage women and V. Lyssaridis were released. The latter also mediated for the release of non-Arab hostages.

Negotiations with the two Palestinians continued until 1:30 a.m., when a large number of hostages were released, except for 15 Arabs, including the five members of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The terrorists' request, which was accepted, was to be transferred to Larnaca airport and given a plane for their safe transfer to Libya or South Yemen.

The two terrorists, with the hostages, arrived at the airport shortly after the arrival in Cyprus of the then President Spyros Kyprianou from Athens. After the Council of Ministers first met at the Larnaca Central Police Station, contacts were made with the Egyptian government, which asked the Cypriot government to delay the departure of the plane that would take the terrorists hostage abroad. At the same time, many questions began to be raised about the actions of the military attaché of the Egyptian embassy in Nicosia, Farouk Taki.

At 8:30 pm, after many hours of negotiations, which were personally handled by President Sp. Kyprianou, a Cypriot Airlines plane was allowed to take off with the terrorists and the hostages in an unknown direction.
Shortly before the plane took off, four Egyptian intelligence officers arrived in Cyprus as "visitors", as it turned out, to prepare the ground with a military escort for a possible Egyptian invasion. Immediately after their arrival, they were spotted photographing areas of Larnaca airport.

The Cypriot Airlines plane tried unsuccessfully to secure a landing permit in Libya, Kuwait and South Yemen. Finally, after a suggestion from one of the pilots (Marios Koutsoftidis), the two terrorists were persuaded to accept the plane to be directed to Djibouti. Although the Djibouti control tower was notified by a French plane, shortly before the landing of the Cypriot plane, of what was happening, however, to avoid tragedy, it retreated at the last minute in order to refuel it. Finally, after a series of unsuccessful talks with Arab states, President Kyprianou asks the plane to return to Larnaca.

The plane arrived in Larnaca at 5:30 pm on Sunday 19 February.

The Egyptian operation

Shortly after the plane returned to Larnaca, the Egyptian government notified the Cypriot that a Hercules C 130 plane would arrive in Cyprus to transport the Egyptian Minister of Information to negotiate with the terrorists. According to Mr. Iakovou, at 6:40 the Egyptian plane lands but to their surprise the Cypriot authorities find that the plane was carrying Egyptian commandos and not the Minister of Information.

Despite the explicit instructions of Spyros Kyprianou to the Egyptians not to take action and despite the telephone communication he had with the President of Egypt Anwar Sadat, at 8:30 pm a military jeep with four Egyptian commandos leaves with dizzying speed and starts firing of the plane.

At the same time, the rest of the Egyptian soldiers are shot and move towards the plane shooting. The jeep is immobilized by a grenade dropped by Cypriot soldiers and all four occupants are killed. The National Guard then destroys the Egyptian plane with an anti-tank missile.

The Egyptians are taken by surprise and finally the Cypriot forces manage to prevent further deterioration of the situation and, most importantly, prevent any violation of the sovereign rights of the Cypriot state. Shortly after the end of the battle at the airport, the two Palestinian terrorists surrendered to the Cypriot authorities and were later sentenced to many years in prison.

The result of the battle was 17 dead and 16 wounded on the Egyptian side and 8 wounded on the Cypriot side.

Source: Liberal