Air West Flight 612

On the day of the hijacking the plane had an entirely Sudanese passenger complement, the only exceptions being a British citizen and an Italian military attaché. Mohamed Abdu Altif (also referred to as Mohamed Abdelatif Mahamat), a 26-year-old from Al-Fashir, in North Darfur, entered the cockpit of the aircraft at 09:00 local time (0600 UTC), approximately half an hour after takeoff from Khartoum International Airport. He ordered the pilot to fly to Rome, Italy and then on to London, England. It was originally mistakenly reported that the hijacker's weapon was an AK-47 assault rifle, but subsequent reports stated that the weapon was in fact a handgun. Twenty minutes of negotiations followed, ==Subsequent events==

The passengers and crew subsequently re-boarded the aircraft, which then returned to Khartoum International at 22:00 local time (19:00 UTC). Chad further announced an intention to prosecute him. A Chadian official subsequently identified him as being "close to" the Justice and Equality Movement rebel group. Sudan's Civil Aviation Authority also formed a separate committee specifically to investigate how Muhammed was able to get a weapon through security undetected. ==Motives==

After Mohammed's arrest, he was taken to the headquarters for the National Security Agency for interrogation. There, he revealed his motives for the hijacking. He wanted to draw attention to the conflict in Darfur, stating: "I wanted to attract national and international opinion to what's happening in Darfur." He said that he wanted to go first to Rome, and then to the United Kingdom to seek asylum. "I'm neither a rebel nor in the opposition, but the Sudanese government is exterminating the population by creating conflicts among different communities and saying that it's just an internal, communal problem," he said. ==See also==