Quote from RT online:
“Four people onboard have been beaten up, two crew and two passengers, as they tried to force them to sign documents,” Sherin Azis, a hostess on the plane, told RT by phone. “We don’t know what these papers are about. We are scared for the fate of the captain. He was taken away and threatened with arrest if he does not sign an emergency landing paper.”
Fatima al-Saman, a passenger and a mother of three, also told RT that the captain was being forced to sign a release stating that military planes were not involved and the plane just made an emergency landing.
“If we do not agree to these terms, they will take the captain kind of hostage,” al-Saman said. “They are threatening us. The captain has now returned and said that ‘either I sign the document that I made an emergency landing or they are taking me hostage.’”
The plane has been surrounded by people in masks who have detained all the cargo and were looking through what looked like boxes with documents, passengers said. The Turkish authorities were interested in some spare parts, which a businessman bought in Russia and was transporting to Syria, al-Saman said. She said that as far as she could tell, they were clearly not weapons.
“They started unloading some packages. They opened them, took pictures. There were many people. We all saw what was in there. There were no weapons. You could see it with an untrained eye!” she said. “They just had some spare parts and papers – objects, but there were no rockets. It is all a lie.”
Nic