My Reunion with a Lebanese Hijacker

I met Hamza Akel Hamieh in Beirut in the early nineteen-eighties, after he had hijacked six planes—a record to this day—to draw the world’s attention to the kidnapping of Musa Sadr, his religious leader. One of the hijackings, in 1981, was among the longest in aviation history. He commandeered a Libyan plane midair between Zurich and Tripoli and ordered it on a six-thousand-mile transcontinental odyssey to Beirut, then Athens, Rome, Beirut again, and Tehran, before ending back in Lebanon. Hamieh walked away, free, from all six hijackings. No one was injured or killed.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
A Witness to Iran’s Intensifying Struggle with Climate Change
Having Tea with Hezbollah’s No. 2
President Trump’s Surprisingly Warm Welcome in the Middle East