Britain's appeals court has quashed the convictions of nine Afghan men jailed for hijacking a plane in Afghanistan and forcing it to fly to London's Stansted airport. The men were jailed in January last year after the jury failed to accept their defense that their actions were motivated by fear of death at the hands of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. But the Court of Appeal overturned that decision on Thursday, saying the the verdict was "unsafe." The disruption to air traffic from the three-day standoff in February 2000 and the two trials which followed are said to have cost Ј12 million (USD 20m).

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