Australian police: taskforce investigates Flydubai co-pilot’s ties to Australia

Australia’s police said on October 4 that a multi-agency counterterrorism taskforce is investigating the links between the co-pilot of Flydubai flight FZ1073 and Australia, CLS and Jiemian reported. CLS said the taskforce includes the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. cnBeta quoted a Victoria joint counterterrorism taskforce police spokesman as confirming in a statement that the taskforce was investigating the man’s links to Australia. [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

cnBeta reported that the co-pilot attacked the captain with an emergency axe during the flight on Wednesday, apparently attempting to bring the aircraft down, and that passengers, most of them Israelis, subdued him before the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia. It said the captain, Indian citizen Smit Machchhar, is recovering in a hospital in the UAE and spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday. Citing a recording released by Netanyahu’s office, cnBeta reported that Machchhar recalled the co-pilot asking to pause to pray, praying behind him in the cockpit and then striking his head with the axe; the cockpit door was locked, but the injured captain said he turned the handle so that passengers and crew could rush in. [ 3 ]

cnBeta said media reports named the co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami and that a person familiar with the matter confirmed the identity, while Israeli officials identified him as an Omani citizen; no government involved has formally published his name. He is being investigated and held in the UAE, which has jurisdiction because the flight is UAE-registered, cnBeta said. Two people familiar with the investigation said he had studied in Australia and had allegedly visited radical mosques and extremist websites, and that Australian intelligence agencies had opened a file on him, cnBeta reported. Jiemian, citing Xinhua, said two sources placed him at a university in Melbourne and a third said he studied at RMIT about 10 years ago; RMIT declined to comment. [ 2 , 3 ]

cnBeta said the disclosures had intensified mutual recriminations over who was responsible for security failures before the attempted hijacking. A person familiar said Oman had barred the co-pilot from flying over suspected radicalisation, including social media accounts allegedly full of anti-Israel texts and images, cnBeta reported; Omani authorities declined to comment. Gulf-based sources told cnBeta that UAE authorities were disappointed Oman and Australia had not shared intelligence about the co-pilot before the attack, quoting a person familiar with the UAE investigation as saying: “Unfortunately, Oman and Australia have only now begun to share this information with us.” [ 3 ]

In Israel, cnBeta reported, anger over apparent intelligence failures replaced earlier relief, and questions were raised over how an apparently radicalised Omani citizen passed Israeli screening. Under Israeli rules, a citizen of a country without diplomatic relations with Israel should have been barred from flying to Israel, it said, and a person familiar with the investigation said Flydubai’s crew list had been submitted to Israeli authorities before departure as usual. Transport Minister Miri Regev, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies are responsible for the security of foreign airlines’ routes to Israel: “It’s the intelligence agencies that should be responsible for vetting, and we are not an intelligence agency.” [ 3 ]

Netanyahu said on Sunday evening that he had instructed the head of the National Security Council to appoint a reviewer to conduct a comprehensive review of all issues related to the security of foreign civil aviation flying to Israel, cnBeta reported. cnBeta also cited unnamed sources as saying the co-pilot had planned to fly the aircraft into an Israeli airport terminal. [ 3 ]