A SWEDISH man arrested with a gun in his carry-on luggage as he attempted to board a Ryanair flight in Sweden was remanded in custody yesterday while prosecutors investigate charges he planned to hijack the airliner.

The man suspected of planning to hijack a plane to London has been remanded in custody for two weeks.

Preliminary charges against attempted hijack suspect Kerim Chatty were today extended to include airplane sabotage or airport sabotage, Swedish police said.

A prosecutor today formally requested that a Swedish man suspected of planning to hijack a plane to London be kept in police custody while formal charges are prepared.

A prosecutor today formally requested that a Swedish man suspected of planning to hijack a plane to London be kept in police custody while formal charges are prepared.

Relatives of a man suspected by Swedish police of planning to hijack a Ryanair airliner were confident that evidence would show he was innocent as lawyers prepared for a hearing today to determine if he should remain in custody.

SWEDISH police scrambled yesterday to meet a legal deadline to charge a man of Tunisian origin suspected of a plane hijack plot just days before the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Swedish intelligence service says the man arrested in Stockholm over a London-bound plane hijacking plot was planning to crash into a European US embassy