The Flydubai co-pilot who tried to hijack a flight to Tel Aviv is a former cryptocurrency speculator who only four years ago was living with his parents and calling women “rotten meat” on a now-disabled social media account. Public information about Omani-Syrian aviator Hamam al-Hammami is scarce. Emirati investigators are keeping a tight hold on information gleaned from their interrogation of the would-be hijacker, diplomats say, and his online presence has been mysteriously scrubbed.
But the FT has reviewed the then 25-year-old’s prodigious online output between November 2021 and October 2022, totalling over 3,000 posts on Twitter. Although his account has been deleted, the posts are still available on an internet archive. His frequently furious online presence fused highly conservative interpretations of Islam with the sexist language of the “manosphere”.
How and when Hammami was radicalised remains unknown. Emirati interrogators are also probing whether or not Hammami acted alone when he used an emergency axe to attack his pilot and attempt to take control of the plane on September 30. The United Arab Emirates has said this was a terrorist act. Israeli investigators are convinced that Hammami was a lone wolf.
The young co-pilot spent time in multiple countries in the Middle East. Hammami undertook aviation studies in Australia from 2015 to 2017, where he said he had lodged with two local families, but did not graduate. In 2018 to 2019, he spent six months studying in New Zealand. Investigators probing Hammami’s private online search history have found that he accessed extremist Islamist content while he was living in Australia.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing