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“I’m Palestinian” North Carolina woman assaults air marshal, threatens to stab everyone on plane

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Dana Ghazi Mustafa
Pictured, Dana Ghazi Mustafa.
Dana Ghazi Mustafa
Pictured, Dana Ghazi Mustafa. Image via police bookings via Alexandria Sheriff’s Office.

Dana Ghazi Mustafa North Carolina woman identifying as Palestinian arrested after assaulting air marshal after attempting to smoke on United Airlines flight lavatory.

‘I’m going to stab everyone on the plane. Then kill myself. I’m Palestinian! That’s how we get down.’

These are the haunting words a woman uttered while on a plane from Frankfurt, Germany to Dulles International Airport over the weekend after causing a commotion on a United Airlines flight.

Upon the plane landing, Dana Ghazi Mustafa a North Carolina resident assaulted a federal air marshal who had attempted to arrest the woman after claims of the woman having an altercation with a flight attendant after attempting to enter the plane’s lavatory with a lighter mid-flight and smoke a cigarette on Saturday, February 22.

According to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department of the Eastern District of Virginia, the ‘altercation’ led to Mustafa crying and upset and being led to a different seat. It was then that the woman told flight attendants she’d been flying home to see her family, who had been killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.

As she made her way to her new seat, the complaint cited Mustafa punching a television monitor behind her and throwing a coin, before proceeding to the back of the cabin with a lighter in her hand. Mustafa allegedly pushed a flight attendant who tried to stop her and she tried to close the bathroom door.

Two federal air marshalls got involved and tried to get her to leave the bathroom, only for the woman to refuse. The criminal complaint states Mustafa being handcuffed, yelling and kicking at the air marshals, including hitting one of them several times in the shins.

According to the criminal complaint, another air marshal managed to calm Mustafa down. One of the marshals collected her belongings which consisted of a half-empty bottle of Absolute Vodka in her bag.

The criminal complaint states, while Mustafa was seated next to a federal air marshal for the rest of the flight after the incident she said several random things including:

‘I’m going to stab everyone on the plane. Then kill myself. I’m Palestinian! That’s how we get down,’ ‘I was allowed to drink my duty-free bottle of vodka on my previous flight,’ and ‘What’s the point of living?’ Mustafa allegedly described that she wanted to punch the air marshal in the face and was imagining stabbing him, according to the criminal complaint.

An FBI agent later interviewed Mustafa about her saying that her family was killed by a drunk driver, but she had a hard time remembering the facts of what she said aboard the plane and admitted that she lied about the story, the complaint states.

Not immediately clear is how the woman came to catch the plane from Germany, where she normally resided and whether she had a prior criminal history or was affiliated with any potential terror affiliate.

Mustafa is scheduled for a preliminary hearing tomorrow, Tuesday at 2 p.m. at the federal courthouse in Alexandra.

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