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'Iranian' passengers blocking plane at Brussels airport give up
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-11 14:01

Some 60 protesters of "Iranian origin" gave themselves up to Belgian authorities after occupying a Lufthansa airliner for nearly 16 hours at Brussels airport, Belgian police announced.

The passengers left the German plane at around 0430 GMT after being threatened with "administrative arrest", meaning identity checks and further controls if deemed necessary, federal police spokesman Els Cleemput told journalists.

A Lufthansa aircraft gets towed away from a gate at Zaventem airport in Brussels March 11, 2005. Belgian police boarded a Lufthansa plane occupied by more than 50 Iranian monarchist protesters at Brussels airport early on Friday after hours of negotiations with foreign ministry officials, witnesses said. [Reuters]

Only about five of the 57 or 58 passengers remaining on the airliner refused to leave their seats and had to be carried off the plane, according to another police spokesman, Vincent Olivier.

The authorities had negotiated late into the night with several dozen passengers who refused to leave the Lufthansa plane in what appeared to be a protest against the EU's conciliatory policies towards Iran.

Earlier a correspondent for ZDF German television who spoke with one of the passengers by telephone said he had been told that no arms were aboard the plane and that no hostages were being held.

An Iranian passenger displays his boarding card at Zaventem airport in Brussels March 11, 2005. A group of Iranian monarchists refused to disembark from a Lufthansa aircraft at Brussels airport in a protest against the Islamic government in Tehran. [Reuters]

The plane had arrived from Frankfurt on Thursday afternoon. The protesters refused to leave the craft, leaving the other passengers and crew to get off without incident.

The remaining passengers "all have passports from the European Union," but "they say they are of Iranian origin," Cleemput said earlier.

"We don't know the nationalities (of the passengers still on board) and we don't know for the moment what they are demanding," she said, adding that they had given police a document of about 20 pages containing their demands.

A young Iranian based in Brussels who identified himself as Ramin and said he was speaking on behalf of the passengers, said the action had been under preparation for five months by a London-based Iranian monarchist group, "Azarakhsh".

"We all ask the leaders of the European Union (not to) support the regime in Iran. We don't ask nobody, no country, nor any power in the world to help us to change the regime. We can do it ourselves," he said.

But the RTL-TVI television station said they were "political demands" linked notably to the European Union's policies with regard to Iran.

The German magazine Der Spiegel said it had received a letter from the group, described as Iranian men and women protesting against a Tehran regime responsible for "torture and terror."

In Berlin, a Lufthansa spokesman said the protest "had nothing to do with our company.

"They have chosen without a doubt a strange place to demonstrate," said the spokesman, Thomas Ellerbeck

He said the plane was carrying 120 passengers, all of whom except the demonstrators had left the plane.

Air traffic was not disrupted by the situation.

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