Ethiopian Hijack?

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Captain

I was also surprised to read on Reddit that the French passenger didn't know anything about the captain.
I have seen the video of the interview (Rai News) of one of the business class passengers, in Italian (as you know passengers were mainly Italians going back to Rome from all over Africa). He states that the captain tried (with a group of 2-3 people) to knock down the cockpit door, and that the hijacker (at that point) threatened to crash the plane and, in order to convince them that he was serious about it, let the plane abruptly dive (at this point oxygen masks were deployed, and everybody on board thought that they were going to crash, terrible moments indeed). He also states that the hijacker requested the captain to stay seated in the area 'controlled' by a camera in the cabin (so that he could observe that the captain was sitting and not attempting anything).
As regards the asil request: I am Italian and Italy has one of the lowest level of financial aid to asil-seekers in Europe. We receive lots of requests just because a LOT of people arrive to our shores (the first arrival land is the only responsible for the arrival and for the Asyl-request, not that we particularly like the idea..) He probably thought Switzerland was a better economical option.
Also, statistics say only one fourth of asyl applications are accepted (on average) in Switzerland. People whose applications are not accepted must be sent back (that's called Ausschaffung). Point is: IF the country of origin does not respect human rights, the person cannot unwillingly be sent back. Ethiopia is of course officialy on the Swiss list of countries where people cannot be sent back. This means there is no possibility (me thinks) that after the jail time he will be sent back. Imagine they would not send back an asyl-seeker that arrived in Greece -as 'first arrival point'- because in Greece (alledgedly) asyl-seekers are kept in 'poor conditions'
Also the idea in European Courts is that you should not extradite (even a criminal, I've read a ruling just now) a person to a country that does not respect human rights (see article 19 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, year 2000).
That said what this person did is unacceptable. In the interviews people are visibly shocked and will suffer from this trauma God knows for how long..
I also think that there something completely insane in this whole story.