BBC reports that the Afgan hijackers of a 727 back in 2000 that ended up at Stansted have been released on appeal. It appears to be on a point of law.
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from the BBC report
Afghan hijackers freed on appeal
The plane was diverted to Stansted
The nine men found guilty of the hijack of an Afghan airliner have had their convictions quashed at the Court of Appeal in London.
Brothers Ali and Mohammed Safi - who had been accused of leading the hijack - were jailed for five years in January last year.
They told their trial they were fleeing persecution by the Taleban.
Lord Justice Longmore, Mr Justice Hooper and Mrs Justice Cox ruled the convictions were "unsafe" because the law relating to whether the men had acted under duress had been wrongly applied at their trial.
The Crown Prosecution Service has already indicated it will appeal "on a point of law" to the House of Lords.
The appeal judges said they would give their reasons for the ruling at a later date.
They hijacked a plane, that's certainly correct, but... they were still acting under the force of the duress
Richard Ferguson
For the men
Six of the other men received sentences of 30 months, with the youngest accused getting a 27-month sentence.
The cost of the incident, including two trials, a huge police cordon at Stansted, and disruption to the airport and business was thought to have to have reached £12m.
But there have been estimates that the total cost of the legal process for the men amounted to £20m.
The men had given themselves up after a 70-hour siege at Stansted Airport in Essex.
Escape bid
The Afghan Ariana Boeing 727 had been diverted during an internal flight in Afghanistan in February 2000.
The men were convicted at the Old Bailey in December 2001 of hijacking the plane, false imprisonment, possessing firearms with intent to cause fear of violence and possessing explosives.
They had said they were escaping persecution from the Taleban regime, and all are reported to have applied for asylum in the UK.
The ruling means the Safi brothers, 37 and 35, the only members of the group still in custody, are likely to be released imminently.
Abdul Shohab, 21, Taimur Shah, 29, Kazim Mohammed, 28, Nazamuddin Mohammidy, 28, Abdul Ghayur, 25, and Mohammed Showaib, 26 have all been released already.
Richard Ferguson, representing the Safis, said: "There was an onus on the defence to prove duress and that's where the legal debate centred and that's really the basis of the Court of Appeal's decision."
Taleban fears
He told BBC News 24: "The factors involved in this case were that these men were escaping from the Taleban regime.
"They hijacked a plane, that's certainly correct, but their case all along was that thereafter they were still acting under the force of the duress.
"They could not give themselves up at any earlier stage because of the fear of being returned to the then Taleban regime in Afghanistan and because of that the hijack was prolonged."
The original trial judge had said the men's action "was brought about by fear of death at the hand of a tyrannical, unreasoning and merciless regime".
But he argued it had changed in nature at Moscow Airport when the hijackers refused to release hostages who did not share their objective of reaching Britain.
And he said they had prolonged the 70-hour standoff at Stansted for political reasons.
The prosecution had said the men were armed with four guns, a knife and two hand grenades, and that they threatened to kill passengers and blow up the plane.
PP