Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said the Omani co-pilot who stabbed the pilot-in-command on a flydubai flight was “radicalised”, adding that a “loophole” in screening had allowed him to fly the aircraft to Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu said that preliminary inquiry and investigation had revealed that the Omani co-pilot underwent a “radical indoctrination. “Well, he was an Omani national and we have constraints that say you can’t have pilots from countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel…So obviously he was able to go through that.
The Israeli PM, in an exclusive interview with Fox & Friends, also said that it would be known “within a matter of days” whether the co-pilot has any connections to Iran, while cautioning that it was “too early” to draw conclusions. Netanyahu further said that the co-pilot had passed a “loophole” in rules prohibiting pilots from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel from flying planes to the country. So there’s a loophole there: How to make sure that we screened pilots in advance,” the Israeli PM told Fox. He said that pre-screening had been done for pilots who had flown the passengers aboard flight FZ1073 from Saudi Arabia to Israel. “We checked their background, but obviously there was a loophole here, and we’re taking care of that, among other things,” Netanyahu said. Netanyahu said that it was “too early” to draw conclusions on whether the co-pilot had any connections with Iran, but added that this would be known “definitively…within a matter of days. “We’re looking into that, so I can’t draw conclusions yet…” Netanyahu said. “I think it’s too early to say whether he had any connections with Iran or with anyone else…It’s too early to say that, but we’ll be able to say that very definitely – I think very fairly definitively, not fairly – I think we’ll be able to say definitively within a matter of days,” the Israeli PM told Fox & Friends.
