The Omani co-pilot who allegedly attempted to hijack a Flydubai plane started a "drift towards extremism and terrorism" while studying in Australia, United Arab Emirates officials say.
UAE Attorney-General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi also alleged the pilot - widely named as Hamam al-Hammami - was last week trying to crash the plane into Tel Aviv's airport in a "suicide attack".
He wounded the captain in the cockpit with the emergency crash axe before being overpowered by passengers. Another crew on the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight was able to land the aircraft in Saudi Arabia.
Melbourne university RMIT earlier confirmed the pilot had studied there but left before completing his engineering qualification.
According to Shamsi, interrogations of the 29-year-old pilot revealed he had been inspired by al-Qaeda's 11 September attacks in the US in 2001.
"The findings indicated that signs of his drift towards extremism and terrorism first emerged in 2017, while he was studying in Australia," the attorney-general was quoted as saying by the UAE's state news agency Wam on Friday.
"During that period, he was influenced by takfiri [radical] ideology through reading extremist literature and following online content glorifying terrorist organisations and suicide attacks."
The Wam report also said the pilot had told investigators "he had prepared himself both psychologically and physically to carry out the plot by intensifying his exposure to material promoting terrorism and training in boxing under a private coach".
"He admitted that he had acted alone, without the involvement of others, although investigations are continuing to verify this claim," Wam said.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has reported the man was issued an Australian student visa in 2014 and studied in the country in 2015-17, before leaving.
This week, the Sydney Morning Herald unearthed tweets from al-Mammami's now-deleted X account in which he referred to his five years spent studying abroad in Australia, Britain, and New Zealand, as "the golden years of my religious commitment".
More than 170 passengers and crew were on board flight FZ1073 on 30 September.
In the days after the incident, Australian authorities confirmed they were looking into the man's links to Australia.
The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team - made up of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Victoria Police and the country's security agency ASIO - said it was "investigating the man's links to Australia".
Indian co-pilot Capt Smit Machchhar has been hailed a hero after managing to unlock the cockpit door while being violently attacked with an axe, allowing passengers to get in and take control of the aircraft.
Questions are also being asked about major security lapses, including how the attacker was recruited by Flydubai and given clearance to fly a plane filled with Israelis to Tel Aviv.
Regional officials said the co-pilot was barred from flying by Oman's national carrier, Oman Air, and moved to an administrative job because of concerns about his extremist views.
He was later hired by UAE-based Flydubai after undergoing standard security checks that did not examine his background for potential signs of radicalisation, according to the officials.
Israeli aviation regulations also state that pilots who are citizens of countries without formal diplomatic relations with Israel, like Oman, are not permitted to operate flights to the country.
Source: BBC
--Agencies
