ANKARA, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish court decided on Thursday to imprison two people who hijacked a passenger plane en route from northern Cyprus to Istanbul on Saturday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    The two, Mommen Abdul Aziz Talikh and Mehmet Resat Ozlu, were sent to a prison in Mediterranean city of Antalya on charges of hijacking a plane and being a member of an armed terrorist organization.

    Palestinian citizen Talikh and Turkish national Ozlu surrendered to the Turkish security forces five hours after they hijacked the plane of Atlas Jet, a private Turkish carrier and landed at the Antalya Airport.

    Turkish authorities were quoted as saying that Talikh had links with the terrorist organization of al-Qaida, and was trained in the terrorist organization's camps in Afghanistan in 2004. He had served two months in a prison in Saudi Arabia.

    Talikh and Ozlu hijacked the plane in order to join al-Qaida's camp in Afghanistan, and tried to direct the plane to Syria or Iran after its take-off from northern Cyprus.

    A total of 136 passengers and six crewmembers were on board the Turkish plane when the two hijackers attempted to storm into the cockpit some 20 to 25 minutes after the plane took off. Although the hijackers wanted to fly the plane to Tehran, pilots managed to land the plane at the Antalya Airport for refueling.