Man held in 1968 hijacking faces NYC arraignment

[October 12, 2009]  NEW YORK (AP) -- A man accused of using weapons hidden in a diaper bag to terrorize airline passengers while hijacking their plane and diverting it to Cuba in 1968 faces a courthouse arraignment this week after being arrested at an airport.

Longtime fugitive Luis Armando Pena Soltren was arrested Sunday after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight from Cuba, federal authorities said. He was wanted for his role in the Nov. 24, 1968, hijacking of a Pan Am flight bound from New York to Puerto Rico, they said.

"As the 1968 charges allege, he terrorized dozens of passengers when he and his cohorts wielded pistols and knives to hijack Pan American Flight 281," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement Sunday.

Soltren, 66, was expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan on the 1968 indictment. He was in custody Monday and couldn't be reached for comment. There was no local telephone listing for him, and prosecutors wouldn't say whether he had any relatives in the area.

It was at Kennedy airport in 1968 that Soltren and accomplices boarded the Pan Am flight and hijacked it, according to an indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan. The flight, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico, was diverted to Havana.

Dozens of U.S. flights were hijacked and diverted to Cuba in the 1960s. Some of the flights were hijacked by self-described radical leftists, fugitives seeking asylum on the Caribbean island or criminals scheming to extort money from the U.S. government or the airlines.

Pan Am Flight 281 was commandeered by three men who forced their way into the plane's cabin and ordered the crew to fly to the Cuban capital, according to a criminal complaint. Weapons and ammunition were sneaked onto the flight in the diaper bag, the court papers said.

Two of the men were arrested in the mid-1970s and pleaded guilty to their roles in the skyjacking, federal prosecutors said.

Another man, who was not on the flight but was described in the criminal complaint as a leader of the Puerto Rican Movement for Liberation, was indicted in the hijacking. He was found not guilty on all charges.

[Associated Press; By CRISTIAN SALAZAR]

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