The woman who allegedly injured three people during a
hijacking of a flight south from Blenheim has been committed
for trial.
Asha Ali Abdille was remanded in custody to a pre-trial
conference in the High Court at Christchurch on February 13,
when the trial date may be set.
The 34-year-old Somali woman, faces a charge of hijacking,
taking an offensive weapon onto an aircraft, and four charges
of wounding or injuring with reckless disregard for safety.
The depositions hearing in front of John O'Hara and Bruce
Dawson, Justices of the Peace, heard the evidence of the last
of the witnesses today, and there were no witnesses called by
her defence counsel.
A police officer on the scene at Christchurch Airport,
Constable Nigel Barton, told the court that he arrived at the
aircraft as the stairs at the back of the plane were lowered.
He said the passengers walked off the plane and then started
running. They were told to stop and lie down on the grass. He
helped the pilot by putting a towel around his injured hand
until ambulance staff arrived.
When the armed offenders squad members escorted Abdille away
from the plane they handcuffed her and made her kneel down.
They found a knife in her shoe and Mr Barton did a pat-down
search of her.
In the car on the way out of the airport Abdille told Mr
Barton that she went easy on the pilot. She said: "He
wouldn't listen to me. I should have killed the pilot
earlier, I should have stabbed him. I am pregnant three
months.
"The pilot kicked me six or seven times. I let him survive
because of the other passengers." On cross-examination by
defence counsel Antony Shaw, Mr Barton admitted it was
unusual for a policeman to pat-down a woman, but he felt the
situation was unique.
There was no policewoman present and he did it to make sure
there was nothing there to endanger the accused, the
officers, or himself, he said.
The officer in charge of the scene, Detective Donald Rayne,
said he first noticed a trail of blood from the steps of the
plane across the tarmac.
He found a black handled knife with what appeared to be blood
on it and then another steak knife on the floor in front of
seat 1A.
There were several areas and seats in the plane with
bloodstains on them, including the cockpit area, and on
documents used by the pilots, he said.
Mr Rayne was asked by defence counsel Greg Gimblett where the
contents of the cockpit voice recording device were, and he
said he could not answer that question.
He confirmed that he had allowed the voice recorder to pass
out of police custody when they finished their scene
examination of the plane.
