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BEIJING: Passengers involved in what officials have called an
attempt to crash a Chinese airliner last week were carrying
“suspicious liquids” on board, the national aviation authority
said Monday.
A China Southern Airlines flight crew foiled
Friday’s alleged attempt to deliberately crash a plane flying to
Beijing from Urumqi, capital of the northwest region of Xinjiang, an
official from the region said on Sunday.
The aviation regulator added on Monday that
“some passengers were in possession of suspicious liquids” on
the flight.
The plane was subsequently diverted to the city
of Lanzhou in Gansu province, where the substances were removed, the
Civil Aviation Administration of China said. The plane continued on
to Beijing.
The aviation administration gave no other
details.
The dearth of information in the case and
another alleged incident raises suspicion as to whether they were
being used as an excuse to crackdown on dissent before the Olympics,
an official from Human Rights Watch told AFP.
The hijack plot was one of two alleged incidents
cited by officials from Muslim-dominated Xinjiang over the weekend
that stoked fears of terrorism with the Beijing Olympics only five
months away.
Wang Lequan, the region’s Communist Party
chief, said authorities there had thwarted a separate attack plot
that was specifically aimed at the Games.
The January 27 raid on alleged “terrorists”
resulted in the deaths of two militants and 15 arrests, Wang told
reporters on the sidelines of the annual National People’s
Congress session.
He offered no other specifics of the alleged
plot, which was believed to be the first specific threat against the
Games to be reported by authorities.
-- AFP
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