UAE Says the Flydubai Co-Pilot Attempted a Terrorist Act
The United Arab Emirates’ prosecutor general has said the co-pilot of Wednesday’s Dubai to Tel Aviv flight “attempted to carry out a terrorist act”, using a crash axe against the captain inside the cockpit and trying to take control of the aircraft. Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said the investigation continues into “the circumstances of the incident, its motives, and related connections”.
This is the first official characterisation from an authority that actually holds the case. Everything said about motive until now came from Israeli ministers: the prime minister described “Islamist radical indoctrination” and called the attacker suicidal, the defence minister called it an “attempted jihadist terror attack”, and two Israeli security sources said they had not found Iranian involvement. The Emirates claims jurisdiction because the aircraft is registered there, and the suspect was transferred from Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi on Thursday along with the injured captain, the Indian national Smit Machchhar. Saudi Arabia’s own preliminary finding said only that there had been “an assault on the captain by the co-pilot”. So the sequence has run from Israeli assertion to Saudi description to an Emirati legal conclusion — and the crash axe, a tool carried in every cockpit, is the first physical detail any authority has confirmed. Final results will follow, Mr al-Shamsi said. Watch whether “related connections” produces a state.