RFE/RL: Libyan hijacking in Malta ends with surrender

A picture taken on Dec. 23, 2016 shows a group of hostages being released in Valletta, Malta, from the Afriqiyah Airways A320 after it was hijacked from Libya. A man who said he was armed with a grenade hijacked a Libyan plane which landed on Malta on Dec. 23 with 118 people on board, Malta's prime minister and government sources on the Mediterranean island said. After more than an hour on the tarmac, the plane's door opened and a first group of women and children were seen descending a mobile staircase. "First group of passengers, consisting of women and children, being released now," Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Twitter, adding in a later tweet that 50 passengers in all were being let off the plane.