Accused hijack pilot said time in Australia was the ‘golden years’ of his religious devotion

The flydubai co-pilot accused of trying to hijack an aircraft bound for Israel told social media followers his time in Australia was among the “golden years” of his religious devotion.Previously unearthed tweets by accused terrorist Hammam al-Hammami have been revealed, painting a picture of his life in Australia between 2015 and 2017.Omani pilot Hammam al-Hammami is accused of attacking his colleague on a flydubai flight to Israel.LinkedInUsing data-scraping tools, this masthead retrieved thousands of posts from the accused terrorist’s deleted X account, which operated under the handle @pilothammam.They were published in 2022, and offer a small window into al-Hammami’s reflections on his time in Australia and his views on religion and relationships.“I studied in Australia, Britain, and New Zealand for five years. I consider them the golden years of my religious commitment; when I returned, my commitment decreased by a very large percentage,” al-Hammami wrote.Along with discussing his aviation career and sharing dating advice, the Omani national posted misogynistic commentary and homophobic abuse.Al-Hammami arrived in Melbourne as a teenager after receiving a student visa in 2014. He lived here from 2015 to 2017 before leaving for either New Zealand or the United Kingdom, where he went on to pursue a piloting career.This timeline corroborates with al-Hammami’s deleted LinkedIn page, a copy of which was also obtained by this masthead.By his own telling, al-Hammami received a scholarship to study an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at RMIT.In one post, he wrote: “I got a scholarship in 2015 to study engineering (before I changed my major) and I saw that the cost was almost a quarter of a million dollars. I wish the government had given me this amount in cash to spend as I wish. I am more deserving of it than the university.”In another, the now 29-year-old shared that he dropped out of the course before graduating. “I left university for the job, and thank God it was the best decision I ever made in my life,” he wrote.He also claimed to have lived with two families during his three years in Australia, revelations made in a series of tweets he shared seemingly reflecting on domestic life in the country.“The first family, the wife did everything – from cooking to cleaning – while he just watched TV, she even cleaned my room. And the second family, he was married to a Korean woman, she did everything while he spent all his time on the laptop.“I studied for a while at RMIT University in Australia, which is ranked among the 66 best universities in the world in terms of research. Most of the teaching staff at the university were Indian, Muslim, Pakistani, Iranian and Arab with doctorates. ”On Sunday, it was announced that the Victoria Joint Counter Terrorism Team was probing al-Hammami’s time in Australia, including his study at RMIT.An Australian Federal Police spokesperson said it would provide an update on the investigation when appropriate.The tweets also refer to al-Hammami’s “flight training” in New Zealand. Assistant NZ police commissioner Michael Johnson confirmed in a statement to Reuters that al-Hammami lived in the country from November 30, 2018, until March 23, 2019.The social media posts were penned in Arabic. This masthead had them electronically translated and then verified by a reader of the script.The Omani national has been detained in Abu Dhabi after he allegedly brandished an axe and attacked the lead pilot aboard flydubai’s flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on September 30.The attempted hijack came close to killing all 174 passengers and crew, according to witness accounts, and was prevented only because passengers intervened and two off-duty pilots on board were able to stabilise the Boeing 737 MAX and land in a regional airport in Saudi Arabia.Details of al-Hammami’s time in Australia came as a senior national security official rejected claims that ASIO held an open file on the co-pilot from that time.London’s Financial Times reported that the nation’s intelligence services had opened a file on al-Hammami while he was living in Melbourne.However, a senior source in the national security community strongly denied this.Al-Hammami might have been included in a database or mentioned in relation to someone else but had not been investigated by ASIO at a serious level, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.Read more on the flydubai incident:Carla Jaeger is a journalist for The Age. Got a tip? Email carla.jaeger@theage.com.au or message carlajaeger.62 on Signal.Connect via X or email.Matthew Knott is the foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X, Facebook or email.From our partners