LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking

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This article is about the hijacking committed in 1978. For the 1969 crash, see LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165.
LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking
Schönefeld Airport
Passengers62
Crew7
Fatalities0
Injuries0
Survivors69

LOT Polish Airlines Flight 165 hijacking was the

political asylum in West Germany (FRG). The plane landed safely, and the primary hijacker was tried and convicted by a West German jury in the United States Court for Berlin
and sentenced to time served, the nine months he had already served during pretrial detention. This was the only case heard before the United States Court for Berlin.

Background

The GDR citizens Hans Detlef Alexander Tiede (aka Detlev Tiede) and his friend Ingrid Ruske and her 12-year-old daughter had travelled to Poland to meet with Ruske's West German boyfriend Horst Fischer, who had planned to bring forged West German papers to enable their escape by ferry to West German Travemünde.[2] However, Fischer did not turn up, and after four days of waiting for him Ruske and Tiede – not having any information as to his whereabouts – concluded that Fischer must have been arrested when travelling through East Germany.[2] Their conclusion was right, as Fischer had indeed been arrested and would later be sentenced to eight years of jail in East Germany for preparing their Republikflucht ("desertion from the Republic"), a crime under GDR law.

Ruske and Tiede then concluded that they were trapped and that prison awaited them if they returned to East Germany.

Poland, to East Berlin.[3]

Hijacking

On 30 August 1978, Tiede and Ruske hijacked a Polish LOT Tupolev Tu-134 airliner with 62 passengers making Flight 165 from Gdańsk to East Berlin. Tiede, armed with the toy starting pistol, took a flight attendant hostage and succeeded in forcing the aircraft to land at Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin.[4]

Of the 62 passengers, there were 50 GDR citizens, 10 Polish citizens, a man from Munich and a woman from West Berlin. The passengers were given the opportunity to remain in West Berlin or to return to East Berlin. Not only did Tiede, Ruske and her daughter claim sanctuary in West Berlin, but so did another seven East Germans:[4] a radiology assistant from Erfurt, a couple with two children and a couple from Leipzig, although the radiology assistant returned to East Germany the next day.[5] The remaining passengers were interviewed and taken to East Berlin on a bus.[5]

Trial

The West German

East German government to sign a hijacking treaty. Consequently, the case was prosecuted in the United States Court for Berlin, with charges bought under the terms of The Hague Convention as incorporated into the laws of the United States, as the plane landed at a US Air Force base.[4][6]

deprivation of liberty and battery.[2] The minimum sentence for hostage-taking was three years.[2] However, Stern sentenced Tiede to time served during pretrial detention, about nine months.[4] Stern accounted for Tiede's emergency situation and plight to face imprisonment in East Germany for attempted Republikflucht.[2]

The 1984 book which Judge Stern wrote about the event, Judgment in Berlin, was made into a movie of the same name in 1988. Martin Sheen depicted him.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ (in German) – "Lars-Broder Keil, "Aus der Flucht wird eine politische Affäre" (trl. The escape turns into a political affair". Berliner Morgenpost. 31 August 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h (in German) – "Joachim Nawrocki, "Berlin: "Wollen Sie solche Richter?"" (trl.: Berlin: "Is this the kind of judges you want?") 11". Die Zeit. 6 January 1979. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
  3. ^ (in German) – Matthias Göpfert, LexiTV – Wissen für alle (trl. LexiTV – Knowledge for all), first transmitted in April 2001, retransmitted in "Entführungen" (trl. kidnappings) by Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk-Fernsehen on 23 September 2008, 14:30h.
  4. ^ a b c d e "US Judge: Berlin Plane Hijack Trial Had Parallels to Guantanamo". Deutsche Welle. 30 August 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
  5. ^ a b "Hijacked to Capitalism: Unwitting East German Defectors Revisit Decision to Stay or Go". Der Spiegel. 20 May 2010. Retrieved 19 April 2014.
  6. ^ "UNITED STATES, as the United States Element, Allied Kommandatura, Berlin, v. HANS DETLEF ALEXANDER TIEDE and INGRID RUSKE, Defendants". United States High Commissioner for Germany. 14 March 1979. Archived from the original on 13 January 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2009. This is a criminal proceeding arising out of the alleged diversion ... of a Polish aircraft by the defendants from its scheduled landing in East Berlin to a forced landing in West Berlin. United States authorities exercised jurisdiction over this matter and convened this Court
  7. IMDb Edit this at Wikidata

Further reading
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