Afriqiyah Airways hijacker sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment

29-year-old Shah Soko Moussa, one of the men behind the 2016 hijack of Afriqiyah Airways, has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

He was also ordered to €9,990, which will be converted into a prison sentence should it not be paid within a year.

On 23 December 2016, Moussa together with Ali Ahmed Saleh, both from the southern Libyan city of Sebha, had seized the Airbus A320 in Libyan airspace and ordered the pilots to divert towards Malta.

There were 111 passengers on board – 82 males, 28 females, and one infant – as well as seven crew members.

The men had unsuccessfully tried to storm the locked cockpit of the aircraft, armed with replica weapons and had then threatened to blow up the plane.

The two hijackers had reportedly demanded political asylum in Malta, however at a press conference held in Valletta an hour after the ordeal was over, former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat denied this and said that “no requests were made.”

Last February, Moussa had pleaded guilty to the charges.

The court solemnly warned him that the charges were terrorism-related and carried with them a possible life sentence.

The court had remitted the acts to the Attorney General for eventual sentencing by the criminal court.

The hijacked plane has since been redeployed on Afriqiyah Airways’ commercial network operations, with the airplane company vowing to help Maltese authorities during investigations.

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