Norway gives hijackers asylum

A row has erupted in Norway after the country's immigration directorate defied the government and granted political asylum to two Iranians who hijacked a flight and forced it to divert to Oslo in 1993.

The then-justice minister had said that the two men - Mansour Mohammadi Injeh, 37, and his brother Farhad, 29 - would never be granted leave to stay in Norway. Nine years later the immigration directorate has gone against this, and the wishes of the current centre-right government.

The two could not be sent back to Iran, it concluded, because they would face the death penalty - a claim disputed by the Iranian government and by the Norwegian embassy in Tehran.

Many politicians, from all parties, believe that Norway's legendary generosity towards refugees fleeing persecution is being abused.

"We can't accept that Norway becomes a safe haven for hijackers," Erna Solberg, a cabinet minister, told the daily newspaper Aftenposten.

"The signal we send is that we are more liberal in relation to crime than others."

The violent nature of the men's crime - threatening to detonate hand grenades and a home-made bomb aboard an Aeroflot plane bound from Azerbaijan to the Russian city of Perm - shocked many Norwegians at the time, and is still embedded in the national consciousness.

However, the government cannot overrule the immigration directorate. It must wait until the case comes up for review next year.

Pilots are also alarmed by the decision. "This is bad for everyone who flies," said Sigurd Loekholm, of the country's pilots union. "For all we know the next hijacking with Norway as a destination may already be on the drawing board."