Airplane Hijackings Ussr

Pakistan will extradite 11 Soviet convicts who overpowered their guards on an Aeroflot airliner and hijacked it to Karachi, Tass news agency said in Moscow. Soviet law enforcement officials will leave for Karachi "in the near future" to pick up the hijackers, who are in custody there, Tass said. The airliner returned to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, Monday night with 29 passengers and nine crewmen, Tass said.

A Soviet hijacker surrendered in Leningrad after seizing an Aeroflot airliner and demanding to be flown to Sweden. The Finnish news agency STT said the Soviet Novosti news agency identified the hijacker as German Gerasimov, a 23-year-old Leningrader. The Tupolev TU-154 was on a flight from Murmansk in the Soviet Arctic to Leningrad when the man commandeered it and ordered the pilot to fly to Stockholm, Finnish air traffic controllers said.

A 40-year-old Soviet man hijacked a Soviet airliner to Helsinki and threatened to blow it up before surrendering at the city's airport. Soviet authorities promptly asked for the extradition of Nikolai I. Selivano, who had applied for political asylum in Finland. Finnish authorities said the hijacker commandeered the airliner with 26 people aboard during a domestic flight from Novgorod to Petrozavodsk near the Finnish border and demanded to be flown to Stockholm.

A 40-year-old Soviet man hijacked a Soviet airliner to Helsinki and threatened to blow it up before surrendering at the city's airport. Soviet authorities promptly asked for the extradition of Nikolai I. Selivano, who had applied for political asylum in Finland. Finnish authorities said the hijacker commandeered the airliner with 26 people aboard during a domestic flight from Novgorod to Petrozavodsk near the Finnish border and demanded to be flown to Stockholm.

The Communist Party leader of the Irkutsk region in Soviet Siberia was replaced after the hijacking of a Soviet airliner last month. The official news agency Tass said Vasily I. Sitnikov had been replaced as party first secretary in the region by his former deputy, Vladimir Potapov. Local officials were criticized by the Soviet press after 11 members of the Ovechkin family, seven of whom made up a jazz band, hijacked an airliner that left Irkutsk on March 8 in a bid to flee to the West.

A Soviet airliner was hijacked in the Soviet Union, and the hijackers demanded to be allowed to land in Israel, Israeli officials said. The plane was on the ground at an undisclosed location in the Soviet Union, said Menahem Eyal, spokesman for Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. It was not clear whether the hijackers still had control over the plane, said Eyal, adding that Ben Gurion was on a low-grade alert.

A Soviet teen-ager who hijacked a domestic Soviet airliner to Sweden by threatening the pilot with a fake hand grenade was extradited to the Soviet Union on Tuesday. Dmitri Semyonov was believed the first person extradited from Sweden to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II, when some Baltic refugees were sent back. The Soviets claimed the refugees were Nazi sympathizers.

A young Soviet hijacker claiming to have a bomb in his briefcase forced a Soviet domestic airliner with 78 passengers to land in Finland, then surrendered to police, airport officials said. The hijacker, a 21-year-old Russian identified as M. Varfolomeyev, asked for political asylum in Finland. Soviet authorities have asked for his extradition. It was the second hijacking of a Soviet aircraft to Finland in less than a week and the third to Scandinavia in two weeks.

In a rare display of cooperation between two nations that are usually antagonistic, Israel on Saturday handed over a gang of Soviet hijackers to a squad of Soviet police officers who had flown from the Soviet Union on a special plane to collect them. The officers and their prisoners left Ben-Gurion International Airport for home Saturday night, one day after the hijackers had arrived in Israel aboard a hijacked Soviet cargo jet.

Soviet air travelers frustrated by delays seized control of a jetliner and demanded to be flown home, but the plane could not land because of bad weather, a newspaper reported. The group had been stranded for several days at an airport in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and passengers became angry when the plane's flight crew went home, Pravda reported. The travelers forced a pilot to make the 300-mile flight to the Kuril island of Iturup.

A Soviet hijacker who tried to kill himself in a Swedish jail rather than return to the Soviet Union will go on trial in Sweden, court officials said Friday. A Swedish prosecutor has pressed charges against Mikhail Mokretsov, 18, and asked that he be deported after serving a sentence in Sweden, the officials said. The trial will begin Thursday.

Pakistan will extradite 11 Soviet convicts who overpowered their guards on an Aeroflot airliner and hijacked it to Karachi, Tass news agency said in Moscow. Soviet law enforcement officials will leave for Karachi "in the near future" to pick up the hijackers, who are in custody there, Tass said. The airliner returned to Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan, Monday night with 29 passengers and nine crewmen, Tass said.

A gang of 11 convicts from a Siberian labor camp overpowered their guards aboard an Aeroflot passenger flight carrying 29 passengers and nine crew members. They hijacked the plane to Karachi, Pakistan, where they sought political asylum. No one was hurt. One of the convicts apparently smuggled weapons on board in an artificial limb, the Soviet news agency Tass reported. The hijackers surrendered after landing at Karachi International Airport.

Sweden's Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against deporting a young Soviet hijacker to face trial in the Soviet Union. The court said that Mikhail Mokretsov--who forced a Soviet civilian airliner on a domestic flight from Riga to Murmansk to fly to Sweden on July 5--will face trial in the Scandinavian country rather than the Soviet Union. Although two other young Soviet hijackers were deported last month, the court said that expulsion of Mokretsov, 18, would be contrary to Swedish law.

A Soviet teen-ager who hijacked a domestic Soviet airliner to Sweden by threatening the pilot with a fake hand grenade was extradited to the Soviet Union on Tuesday. Dmitri Semyonov was believed the first person extradited from Sweden to the Soviet Union since the end of World War II, when some Baltic refugees were sent back. The Soviets claimed the refugees were Nazi sympathizers.

A young Soviet man hijacked a Soviet airliner with 159 people aboard on a domestic flight, forced the plane to fly to Sweden and surrendered to police after landing in Stockholm, police said. Police spokesman Lennart Pettersson said the 19-year-old hijacker was taken to Stockholm police headquarters for questioning. No one on the plane was injured during the hijacking, although it appeared the hijacker may have had a hand grenade, Pettersson said.

A young Soviet hijacker claiming to have a bomb in his briefcase forced a Soviet domestic airliner with 78 passengers to land in Finland, then surrendered to police, airport officials said. The hijacker, a 21-year-old Russian identified as M. Varfolomeyev, asked for political asylum in Finland. Soviet authorities have asked for his extradition. It was the second hijacking of a Soviet aircraft to Finland in less than a week and the third to Scandinavia in two weeks.