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Russia foils plane hijacking in Moscow
July-30-2010

A man who allegedly tried to hijack a passenger plane at Moscow's Domodedovo airport was detained on Thursday, news agencies reported.

The plane on a domestic flight from Russia's North Caucasus city of Mineralniye Vody to Moscow was due to land at 3:45 p.m. Moscow time (1145 GMT).

However, "before the aircraft landed, one of the passengers had a message passed to the captain that one of the people on board possesses valuable information for law enforcement agencies," said a transportation police spokesman.

The captain then reported the incident to ground services and steered the aircraft to a special landing site.

The man born in 1970 then demanded appearances of senior officials and reporters at the airport, while taking all the people onboard the plane as hostages.

However, as one of the passengers fell ill and the hijacker sanctioned boarding of doctors, special forces disguised as doctors got onto the plane, seized the attacker and freed all passengers.

According to Rufina Nevzorova, a prosecution spokeswoman in charge of transportation facilities, the detainee was 40-year-old Magomet Bakiyev of the Krasnodar region, who turned out to be neither armed nor in possession of any items or substances that " would have posed any threat".

Instead, Bakiyev "would utter sentences such as 'I wouldn't advise you to open the door' or 'I wouldn't advise you to pass water to the passengers,'" said the spokeswoman.

Russian Investigative Committee of Prosecutor General's Office also confirmed in a statement that there were 105 people on board, including seven crew members and five children, all of whom were released at around 6:30 p.m. Moscow time (1430 GMT).

"As a hostage release condition he (the attacker) demanded that he be allowed to contact the Russian prime minister," said the statement.

Earlier the Interfax news agency identified the attacker citing anonymous source as a Kazakh citizen of Ingush ethnicity living in Almaty.

An investigation was currently underway.