All we know of Ibrahim Samaha, the professor who hijacked EgyptAir plane

Cairo: Ibrahim Samaha, a visiting professor at the University of Atlanta in his late twenties, is alleged to have played out the kidnap drama involving the EgyptAir flight carrying 81 people onboard, earlier this morning.

The original course of the hijacked plane was from Alexandria to Cairo, but Samaha forced the plane to take a detour to Cyprus.

Reports claim that he wanted the plane to diverted to Istanbul, but had to make do with the halt at Cyprus as he told that the fuel wouldn’t permit such a long trip.

The hijacker demanded that asylum be granted to him in Cyprus and also that he be allowed to see his estranged Cypriot wife, according to reports.

Samaha, a veterinarian, is a native of the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria and a dual Egyptian-American citizen.

Though it has been widely reported that the hijacker had an explosive west, apprehensions have surfaced, with sources expressing doubt about it that he had explosives on him.

Reports also quoted witnesses as saying that the suspect threw a letter written in Arabic on to the airport tarmac in Larnaca, asking that it be delivered to the woman, who is Cypriot.

Meanwhile, an Egyptian woman has claimed that she is the wife of Ibrahim Samaha - the name given earlier by Egyptian officials as the hijacker.

She said that her husband, with the same name, is not the hijacker and that he was on his way to Cairo en route to the United States to attend a conference.

The woman, who identified herself as Nahla, told the private TV network ONTV in a telephone interview that her husband had never been to Cyprus and that a photo shown on Egyptian and regional TV channels and purporting to show the hijacker is not her husband.

The confusion over the identity of the hijacker could not immediately be resolved.