The Cyprus foreign ministry has confirmed on Twitter that the man who hijacked EgyptAir flight MS181, which was travelling from Alexandria to Cairo on Tuesday, has been arrested. The police said no explosives were found on the man or the plane. The country's aviation minister said that all passengers and crew of the hijacked plane are safe, reported AFP. This comes more than five hours after the hijacker forced the flight to divert to Cyprus' Lanarca airport. The Cyprus government had earlier identified the hijacker as Seif Eldin Mustafa, after Egypt's state television named him as Dr Ibrahim Samaha, a university professor. The Egyptian government has since apologised to Dr Samaha for the mistake.

The hijacker had earlier released most of the 55 passengers who were on board the aircraft. The pilot of the aircraft had reported that the hijacker was strapped with explosives, although this hasn't been confirmed by the authorities. After initial reports suggested that the motive behind the hijacking was a love story gone awry, Cyprus' state broadcaster reported that hijacker has asked for the release of female political prisoners in Egypt, according to Reuters. However, this has not been officially confirmed. A Cyprus foreign ministry official told Reuters that the hijacker "appears to be unstable".

Initial reports said the hijacker had demanded to meet his ex-wife, who lives in Lanarca, and also sought asylum. The woman, whom Al Arabiya identified as Marina Parashkou, has been taken to the airport to participate in negotiations. Earlier, there were reports that the hijacker was carrying a letter that he wanted delivered to Parashkou.

As personal motives came to the fore, Cyprus' president Nicos Anastasiades confirmed that this was not a terrorist attack, though the incident had invited widespread panic initially. An Egyptian foreign ministry official said, "He's not a terrorist, he's an idiot. Terrorists are crazy but they aren’t stupid. This guy is."

This might be a photo of Samaha:

Cyprus has shut down the Lanarca airport, where the flight is being held and diverted all flights to Paphos, the Telegraph reported. Egypt has sent a plane to Cyprus to pick up the released passengers, who were meant to land in Cairo several hours ago. Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry said the flight's captain, Amr al-Gamal initially reported that a man strapped with explosives was aboard and had forced the plane to land in Cyprus. The Associated Press reported that he first allowed women and children to get off the plane, and some of them disembarked.

The director of the Alexandria airport, Hossni Hassan, said there were 26 foreigners on board, including eight Americans, four Britons, four Dutch, two Belgians, a French national, an Italian, two Greeks and one Syrian.

The first pictures of the plane on the tarmac:

Here's a tentative map of the plane's route:

In October last year, 224 people were killed when a Russian A321 airliner was forced to crash into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai branch of the Islamic State had claimed responsibility for the attack, but Russian authorities had said that an explosive device onboard had caused the crash.

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