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Malta PM Joseph Muscat live tweets hijacking
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Friday was probably the first premier to live tweet the hijacking of an airliner.
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Friday was probably the first premier to live tweet the hijacking of an airliner from his official Twitter handle even as he continued posting updates after the hijackers surrendered.
In a series of tweets, the 42-year-old politician alerted the world to the hijacking of the Afriqiyah Airways flight with 118 on board. The first tweet was sent out personally by Muscat while the rest were the work of others managing his handle.
Many news reports around the world quoted Muscat’s tweets, including an update that the flight had 82 men, 28 women and an infant.
Muscat, who has been the prime minister since 2013 and leads the Labour Party, was uniquely placed to comment on the developments – he was leading a meeting of the country’s National Security Committee in Castille to end the hijacking crisis.
There was little else in Muscat’s Twitter timeline that would have attracted as much attention from audiences around the world.
In the recent past, the premier with more than 39,000 followers has tweet or retweeted about subjects such as the film Assassin’s Creed, which was filmed in Malta, grossing $14 million at box office and the recent inauguration of a new monument to Valetta architects Girolamo Cassar and Francesco Lapparelli.
