Syria Refuses its Fighter Jet from Jordan without Defecting Pilot
01-11-2012 12:00 AM
Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Syria continues to refuse reclaiming the MiG-21 fighter jet that a Syrian army pilot defected to Jordan with last June, the Lebanese Al-Diyar daily said.
The report said that Syria refuses to reclaim the fighter jet without Jordan also turning in the defecting pilot with it.
"Syria informed Jordan that it either returns the MiG-21 fighter jet and the pilot, or doesn't want the 'abducted' plane, it would stay in Jordan," the newspaper reported on Thursday.
The Jordanian authorities had agreed to grant the defecting Syrian pilot, Colonel Hassan Hamada, who landed his military jet in a Jordanian airbase last June political asylum on the basis of the Geneva Convention.
The pilot defected from a claimed military exercise on the morning of June 21, 2012 and landed the Russian-made fighter plane in Jordan shortly afterwards.