MADRID (Reuters) – A judge ruled on Monday that 12 people who had been arrested following an emergency landing in Spain’s Mallorca island will remain under custody without bond under preliminary charges of sedition and coercion.
Two of them were also charged with favouring illegal immigration, the Balearic Island top court said in a statement.
The Palma de Mallorca judge ordered their imprisonment pending trial three days after a group of passengers fled a plane onto the runway at the city’s airport, causing it to close for over three hours.
Authorities are looking for 12 other people who fled the plane.
The Air Arabia Maroc flight from Casablanca to Istanbul made an emergency landing at Palma de Mallorca airport on Friday evening after reports of an ill passenger, police said.
The 12 arrested included the ill passenger, who was taken to hospital with a companion. The companion then tried to flee the hospital and was also arrested.
The passenger who triggered the emergency landing by saying he was suffering a diabetic crisis was released from hospital after staff determined he was not ill. He had been arrested in Spain in 2020 for hurting authorities and resisting orders, El Pais newspaper reported.
Officials are investigating whether the incident was the result of a Facebook group’s plan to enter Spain illegally, according to the newspaper.
(This story was officially corrected after court rectified prior statement, saying arrested were not charged with public disorder but coercion; only two charged with favouring illegal immigration.)
(Reporting by Joan Faus; Editing by Dan Grebler)
