Source: Canoe News
March 27, 2008
BEIJING - A 19-year-old woman has confessed to attempting to hijack and crash a Chinese passenger plane that had to be diverted after suspicious liquid was found on board.
The official Xinhua News Agency says the woman confessed to a "terrorist" attempt on the March 7 flight to Beijing from Urumqi, the capital of China's Muslim Xinjiang region.
The flight was diverted to Lanzhou, in neighbouring western Gansu province, after one or more passengers were found with suspicious liquids.
The woman is from China's Turkic Muslim Uighur minority, Xinhua said, and officials have called the attack part of a terror campaign to turn the region into an independent nation called East Turkestan.
China frequently says people have confessed to crimes. It was impossible to know if the woman had a lawyer to comment on her case.
China Central Television said Thursday that the plot was a terrorist attack that had been organized and premeditated.