A former boxing champion has been praised as a hero after volunteering to take the place of a terrified young woman held at knifepoint during a dramatic airport hostage situation – before disarming the attacker with his bare hands.
Shocking footage captured the terrifying standoff at Almaty Airport, Kazakhstan, where a knife-wielding man seized a 21-year-old female security officer, yanking her by the hair and threatening to blow up the airport with a bomb he claimed he could detonate via his phone.
As panicked Botagoz Mukhtarova screamed, the courageous father-of-five, Musa Abdraim, 52, stepped forward, offering to swap places with her – a move that may have saved her life.
The ordeal unfolded when the 67-year-old attacker suddenly pulled out a knife after being asked to show his ID at the security checkpoint. Security guards and police watched in horror as he grabbed the female officer, waving the blade dangerously close to her face while ranting about detonating a bomb.
“The attacker had a knife and a phone,” Abdraim said. “He told the policemen he would press a button on the phone, and everything would blow up.”
It was then that Abdraim, dressed in a plain brown T-shirt, made his move. As the airport fell silent in fear, Abdraim waited for the perfect moment – then lunged at the attacker, grabbing the knife with his bare hands in an astonishing show of courage.
“I came to the airport to see off my relatives,” said Abdraim. “Suddenly I heard a girl scream and immediately ran there. I saw that he was going to stab her. I told him: ‘Take me hostage instead of her.'”
Remarkably, the knifeman agreed – releasing the terrified woman and seizing the ex-boxer instead. Speaking afterwards, a shaken but composed Abdraim said: “I was really afraid he would stab her.”
Initially he tried reasoning with the man. Abdraim acted instinctively in grabbing the knife, he said, and was still “shocked.”
“In the past, I did boxing, martial arts, Thai boxing, kickboxing… but that was a long time ago,” he added.
Kazakh authorities later confirmed the suspect, a 67-year-old resident of Almaty, had been detained and was facing up to 12 years in jail for the attack.
A police statement said: “Officers at Almaty Airport detained a man who, after passing into the inspection area, grabbed an inspector by the hair and threatened her with a kitchen knife. Police officers, with the help of airport security and a hero citizen, disarmed the offender and took him into custody.”
Abdraim’s extraordinary bravery has now been recognized at the highest level, with Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announcing he will receive a state medal for courage.
