Man who hijacked a small plane in Belize and was fatally shot was a US veteran
BELIZE CITY: A US citizen hijacked a small Tropic Air plane in Belize on Thursday at knifepoint, injuring three others before being shot and killed, police said.
The assailant pulled a knife while the plane was in air, demanding the domestic flight take him out of the country, Police Commissioner Chester Williams told journalists.
The hijacker was identified as US citizen Akinyela Sawa Taylor, Williams said, adding that it appeared Taylor was a military veteran.
The plane circled the airspace between northern Belize and capital Belize City as the hijacking was underway, and began to run dangerously low on fuel, the police commissioner said.
Taylor stabbed three people on board, according to Williams, including the pilot and a passenger who shot Taylor with a licensed firearm as the plane landed outside Belize City.
That passenger was rushed to the hospital, as was Taylor, who died from the gunshot wound.
Williams said that it was unclear how Taylor boarded the plane with a knife, though he acknowledged that the country's smaller airstrips lacked security to fully search passengers.
The attacker had been denied entry to the country over the weekend, according to police. The plane had been due to fly the short route from Corozal near the Mexican border to San Pedro, off the coast. Police said it was unclear how Taylor reached Corozal.
Belizean authorities have reached out to the US embassy in the country for aid in investigating the incident. Luke Martin, public affairs officer for the embassy, told journalists that it had no details on Taylor's background or motivation so far.
According to information released by the airport, Taylor was a teacher in the United States. He was listed online as previously being a football coach at the McCluer North High School in Florissant, Missouri.
An employee at the school told Reuters that Taylor did not currently work there.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Saudi Gazette
2 days ago
- Saudi Gazette
Five musicians murdered in suspected Mexican cartel killing
MEXICO CITY — Five musicians who disappeared in the Mexican city of Reynosa, near the US border, were murdered by suspected drug cartel members, Mexican authorities have said. Nine alleged members of the notorious Gulf Cartel have been arrested on suspicion of murder, according to Irving Barrios Mojica, attorney general for the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The musicians, known as Grupo Fugitivo, were kidnapped while traveling to a private event on 25 May, Barrios Mojica said. Soon after, their relatives reported receiving ransom demands. Investigators are working to establish a motive for the killings. The musicians were aged between 20 and 40, and often played at local parties and dances. Nine firearms and two vehicles were also seized during the arrests. Grupo Fugitivo performed a range of regional Mexican music, a genre which includes corridos — songs that have historically been used to pay homage to drug cartels and their leaders. It is not immediately clear if the group was targeted because of their music, or were caught up in the violence that has long beset Tamaulipas, where the Gulf Cartel has a strong presence. The Trump administration has designated the Gulf Cartel, alongside several other criminal groups, a "global terrorist organization". In January, the US embassy in Mexico issued a level 4 travel advisory, the highest level, warning its citizens not to travel to several Mexican cities, including Reynosa. It cited the risk of "crime and kidnapping" and "increasingly frequent gun battles occurring in and around" the city. "Heavily armed members of criminal groups often patrol areas of the state and operate with impunity particularly along the border region from Reynosa to Nuevo Laredo," the US state department said. "In these areas, local law enforcement has limited capacity to respond to incidents of crime." — BBC
Saudi Gazette
21-05-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Former DR Congo PM sentenced to hard labor on corruption charge
NAIROBI — A former prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been sentenced to a decade's forced labor for corruption. Augustin Matata Ponyo was found guilty of embezzling about $245m (£182m) of public funds by the Congolese Constitutional Court on Tuesday, alongside Deogratias Mutombo, the former governor of the DR Congo's central bank. Matata's lawyer told Reuters news agency that the ruling was unfair and politically motivated. Part of the funds were taken from a major agricultural development intended to tackle the country's chronic food shortages. Matata served as prime minister of the DRC from 2012 to 2016 and now heads the country's Leadership and Governance for Development party (LGD). Prior to his premiership, he was finance minister and received praise from the International Monetary Fund at the time for stabilizing the country's Mutombo, the central bank's former governor, has also been sentenced to five years of forced labor in the same case and has not commented publicly on the labor is legal in DR Congo when mandated by a court for a criminal penalty, according to the US State men have been barred from public service for five years from the end of their terms of forced labor, the AFP news agency who campaigned against DRC President Felix Tshisekedi in the 2023 vote before dropping out, has consistently denied the case has stretched over almost four years since the country's Inspectorate General of Finance reported the theft from the Bukanga-Lonzo Agro-Industrial Park in park was one of Africa's largest ever agricultural investments according to the Reuters news agency and the African Development Bank Group had expected to provide 22,000 was intended to provide reprieve to the 28 million people who currently face acute food insecurity in DR Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for more than 30 years, since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. — BBC
Arab News
18-05-2025
- Arab News
Mogadishu suicide bomber kills at least 10 at army recruitment drive
MOGADISHU: At least 10 people were killed on Sunday after a suicide bomber targeted a queue of young recruits registering at the Damanyo military base in the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses told were lining up at the base's gate when the attacker detonated their explosives, they staff at the military hospital told Reuters that they had received 30 injured people from the blast and that six of them had died immediately.
