Feature: EgyptAir flight hijacker "only offered pain, misery and terror": ex-wife

Egyptian Saif el Din Mustafa , the man who hijacked an EgyptAir flight on Tuesday and diverted it to Cyprus, has claimed that he was driven to his act by love for his ex-wife and the desire to see his children.

When asked by investigators why he hijacked the EgyptAir Airbus-320 and forced it to Cyprus, his actual answer was: "When one hasn't seen his family for 24 years and wants to see his wife and children and the Egyptian government does not allow him to, what one should do?"

But his former wife Marina Paraschou told a very different story in the interviews with two local newspapers on Friday.

She said, Mustafa was far from being a loving and caring husband and merely used her name as a pretext to come to Cyprus to ask for asylum.

She said they married in 1985 when she was 20 and lived in Oroklini, a village not far from Larnaca airport where Mustafa ordered the pilot to land.

The marriage lasted five years and they separated after they had a son and three daughters, one of whom died in 2002 at the age of 17 in a road accident.

Paraschou said Mustafa did not even care to attend the funeral, When she called him to tell him about their daughter's death. she said he responded: "And what do I care? I don't mind that she died".

In 1988, Mustafa was convicted on six counts of forging passports and given a suspended sentence. He was later deported to Egypt but re-entered Cyprus on an assumed Qatari identity, he was caught, and again deported in 1990.

Paraschou said the family was facing several problems because Mustafa was not working and they often had no food on the table.

She also said he did not care about his children's needs.

Paraschou, who remarried after her divorce and had another son, raised her small children with the help of her parents.

"My children now have their own families and lives," she said, adding that she was bewildered that Mustafa said he wanted to see them. "For more than two decades he didn't even care if we lived or had died," she added.

Paraschou added that she has fears for her and her children's lives as she believes that her ex-husband is capable of escaping from custody.

When Mustafa asked to meet her as the hijack was underway and she was traced by police, Paraschou said she was asked to identify his voice.

"I could not even talk to him, I did not speak to him, and I do not want either to see him or talk to him again," she said, adding that neither her children wanted any contact with Mustafa.

"This incident has upset our lives yet again", the ex-wife said.

"What we are asking of him as a family is to respect our peace of mind and the life we built. He only offered pain, misery and terror. And even now when he's in police custody, my children and I are afraid," she concluded. Endit