Two Turkish men hijacked a Turkish Airlines jet flying from Tirana to Istanbul today and demanded to be flown to Rome to deliver a message to the Pope.

All 107 passengers were allowed to leave the Boeing 737 aircraft after it was escorted into the southern Italian airport of Brindisi by F16 fighters.

Italian media reported that the men were protesting against the Pope’s forthcoming visit to Turkey.

However, Turkish television reports said that at least one of the men was a Christian convert and conscientious objector who had asked for the Pope’s help in avoiding military service.

One of the hijackers was named tonight as Hakan Ekinci. A letter posted on the internet in August and signed by a man of that name said that he had converted to Christianity in 1998 and wanted the Pope to help him avoid military service. Turkish law does not recognise conscientious objectors.

Both hijackers tonight asked for political asylum in Italy. Neither was believed to have been armed during the hijacking.

Greek air traffic controllers picked up distress signals from the airliner shortly after it crossed into Greek airspace. "I have two undesirable people who want to go to Italy to see the Pope and give him a message," the captain of the jet was quoted as saying by a Greek military spokesman.

Fighter jets escorted the aircraft to Brindisi, where Italian police put in place emergency measures to deal with acts of terrorism codenamed "Leonardo Da Vinci". No deaths or injuries had occurred during the hijacking.

Pope Benedict XVI is due to pay a three-day visit to Turkey at the end of November.

The visit has been overshadowed by Islamic protests following a speech by the Pope during a recent visit to his native Germany in which he quoted a medieval Byzantine Emperor as saying that the Prophet Mohammed had brought only "evil and inhumanity" and had spread the Muslim faith "by the sword".

The Islamic protests abated after the Pope expressed his regret four times over the impact of his remarks at Regensburg University.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to murder Pope John Paul II in 1981 and is now in jail in Turkey, has appealed to Pope Benedict not to go to Turkey, claiming that his life is in danger.

There has been a series of attacks on Catholic priests in Turkey, and the plot of a recent novel published in Turkey revolves around an attempt on Benedict’s life during his forthcoming visit.

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