Canadian hostage drama in Jamaica ends peacefully

By Horace Helps

KINGSTON (Reuters) - A would-be hijacker surrendered to authorities on Monday after agreeing to free the last of more than 180 hostages he seized hours earlier aboard a Canadian charter jet in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The suspect, armed with a .38-calibre revolver and described as "a troubled young man," surrendered peacefully to heavily armed police and soldiers who stormed the CanJet plane he had commandeered at Sangster International Airport in the Caribbean nation's prime tourist resort, authorities said.

Identified by police as Stephen Fray, a Montego Bay resident who is about 20 years old, had demanded to be flown to Cuba after breaching security about 10 p.m. on Sunday (0300 GMT Monday) to force his way aboard the CanJet charter.

A shot was fired as the hostage drama unfolded but no one was wounded, a senior police official said.

CanJet said the incident aboard Flight 918, involving a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with 182 passengers and crew, occurred after it made a scheduled landing in Montego Bay en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

It came as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Jamaica on a previously scheduled visit following his attendance at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago over the weekend.

Fray initially freed two crew members and all 174 passengers from the plane as it sat on a tarmac at Sangster, which Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding said had been privatized and therefore was responsible for its own security.

After hours of tense negotiations, personally overseen by Golding and his national security minister, Dwight Nelson, Fray agreed to free his six remaining crew-member hostages, according to Jamaican Information Minister Daryl Vaz.