Co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami: suspect in FlyDubai incident with Al-Qaeda videos
The 29-year-old Omani co-pilot Hamam al-Hammami is suspected of attacking a FlyDubai captain on a flight to Israel. Videos featuring Al-Qaeda leaders and Islamist poetry appeared on his social media profiles.
Co-pilot with radical online presence
The co-pilot who is suspected of attacking a FlyDubai airline captain is identified, according to BILD information, as 29-year-old Hamam al-Hammami, an Omani national. Various media outlets cited security sources on this.
Immediately after the incident, two videos were uploaded to al-Hammami's LinkedIn profile. The first showed footage of current Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. In the second video, the three holiest cities of Islam – Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem – were named, accompanied by an Islamic poem calling for rejection of humiliation and defence of dignity. It remains unclear who published the videos.
At the same time, both videos also appeared on an Instagram account under al-Hammami's name, according to CNN. The LinkedIn page has since been deleted.
Al-Hammami was originally employed by OmanAir. The company dismissed him after messages with radical content were found on his mobile phone. Oman subsequently imposed a flight ban on him. After a brief employment with a Moroccan airline, he worked for approximately eight months for FlyDubai in the United Arab Emirates.
Several circumstances remain unclear: how al-Hammami could be employed in Dubai despite Oman's flight ban, and why the Emirati airline deployed him on a flight to Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Israel accepts only pilots from airports according to its own guidelines who come from countries that maintain diplomatic relations with the country – which is not the case with Oman.
The 29-year-old was born in Oman. His mother is said to be of Syrian origin and his father of Omani origin; he lived in Oman for a long time.
Source: BILD