Turkish ferry hijacker linked to PKK, had explosives

By Jasper Mortimer Nov 12, 2011, 16:22 GMT

Ankara - The Kurdish nationalist who hijacked a Marmara Sea ferry, holding 24 people hostage for 12 hours, was armed with more than 400 grams of plastic explosives, Turkish authorities said Saturday.

The hijacker's demands indicated he was allied with the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK, Istanbul Governor Hussein Avni Mutlu told reporters. The group is widely recognized as a terrorist organization.

The hijacking ended early Saturday morning when commandoes swam to the ferry, which had run out of fuel, boarded it and killed the hijacker. All 18 passengers and six crew were freed unharmed. Previous reports had said there were 19 passengers.

Interior Minister Idris Naim Shahin identified the hijacker as Mensur Guzel, born in 1984. He lived in Izmit, from where the ferry set off Friday afternoon, but he came from the Kulp district of the south-eastern province of Diyarbakir, a Kurdish majority region of Tukey.

CNN Turk reported he was the PKK youth leader in Kocaeli province, which includes Izmit. Police raided his house in Izmit and arrested his flatmate, a student in Kocaeli university, and two other friends.

Mutlu hailed the rescue, which was assisted by police special forces, as 'a successful operation that saved us from an explosion that would have caused great damage and loss of life.'

The ferry had anchored in the bay of Silivri, west of Istanbul. A middle-aged woman told CNN Turk that when Guzel began seizing the passenger's cell phones, some people managed to discretely phone their loved ones to say farewell, fearing the worst.

But when the commandoes came on board and ushered the passengers to the back of the ferry before storming the bridge, 'we were confident that we would be rescued,' she said.

Another passenger, Ceyhun Tezel, said Guzel did not appear to be 'experienced or professional.'

'He kept on changing his mind about where to go,' Tezel said.

During the hijacking, reports of the hijacker's PKK links provoked media speculation that he might take the ferry to Imrali, the heavily guarded island in the Marmara where PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan is imprisoned for life.

But the catamaran ferry, shadowed by three coastal patrol boats, did not go to Imrali.

Talking to the media hours after the rescue, Mutlu said Guzel's bomb mechanism consisted of '400 to 450 grams of A4 plastic explosives' - a type often used by the PKK. It had three detonators and was wired to explode.

'The specific demands (of the hijacker) were those of the organization,' Mutlu said. 'You know what they are.' Asked which organization, he replied, 'the PKK terrorist organization.'

More than 40,000 people have died since the PKK began its armed struggle in 1984. While initially it sought to create an independent Kurdish state in south-eastern Turkey, it now says it seeks 'democratic autonomy' within Turkey for the south-east.