Most passengers freed in Egyptian plane hijacking
More passengers have been released after a hijacker seized a Cairo-bound Egyptian airliner and diverted it to Cyprus.
It is reported the hijacker is an American-Egyptian national named Ibrahim Samaha.
Egyptian civil aviation said the hijacker had threatened to detonate an explosives belt on the EgyptAir flight which was diverted to Cyprus's southern coastal city of Larnaca.
Egyptian civil aviation say the EgyptAir plane was headed from the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria to Cairo with 81 passengers on board when it was seized.
All passengers were released except for the crew and five foreigners whose identities of the foreigners were not immediately clear.
EgyptAir earlier tweeted that "negotiations with the hijacker" had resulted in "the release of all the passengers, except the crew and four foreigners."