Black Sea Hostage Crisis - Hijacking

Hijacking

The hijackers were five Turkish nationals of Caucasian origin, Muhammed Emin Tokcan (b. 1969 in Gebze), Tuncer Özcan (b. 1968 in Düzce), Sedat Temiz, Erdinç Tekir (b. 1966 in Istanbul), Ertan Coşkun (b. 1960 in Zonguldak), Ceyhan Mollamehmetoğlu, an ethnic Abkhaz from Abkhazia, Khamzat Gitsba (b. 1971), and two Chechens, Ramazan Zubareyev (b. 1963) and Viskhan Abdurrahmanov (b. 1967). The group took over the ship as it was about to depart from the Turkish port of Trebizond en route to Eregli and then to Sochi in Russia. The port security supervisor was shot in the foot during the hijacking and the route was changed to Istanbul.

The hijackers announced they were planning the destruction of the ship in order to draw attention to Chechnya's plight. They also threatened to blow it up together with the 114 Russian hostages if the Russian forces did not halt their ongoing offensive operation against a large group of Chechen fighters led by Salman Raduyev, surrounded with about 200 civilian and police hostages in the village of Pervomayskoye at the border between Chechnya and the Russian republic of Dagestan. Dozens of people were killed when the Russian FSB and military attempted to storm and then shelled Pervomayskoye; on the night (before dawn) of January 18 the Chechens fought their way through the Russian encirclement in a bloody breakout.

The Turkish authorities, ignoring Russian demands that they act more forcefully, avoided further bloodshed and liberated all hostages through constant communication and negotiations with the captors. The ship arrived at the northern entrance to the Bosphorus on January 19, 1996, at around 12:00 hours, after the end to the fighting at Pervomayskoye. At 17:00 hours the same day, four of the militants surrendered to the authorities after throwing their weapons and bombs into the sea. The remaining members of the group tried to hide amongst the passengers without success.