Sweden drops Ryanair hijack probe

Sweden today dropped the hijacking investigation into a man who tried to board a Ryanair flight to London with a gun in his bag.

Kerim Chatty, a 29-year-old Swede whose father is Tunisian, may still face a weapons charge.

He was released from custody last month after spending four weeks in jail under suspicion of planning to hijack the airliner as it flew to Stansted airport.

“I haven’t been able to find enough evidence that the purpose of the weapons possession was to hijack the plane,” chief prosecutor Thomas Haeggstroem said today.

Chatty was arrested on August 29 at Vaesteraas airport, 60 miles northwest of Stockholm, after a gun was found in his carry-on luggage.

He admitted possessing the gun but pleaded not guilty to hijacking. He told police he was going to an Islamic conference in Birmingham.

Some media reports at the time suggested Chatty had planned to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe, which Swedish authorities denied.

“According to his own account, it was a weapon that he has had for some time,” Haeggstroem said. “His explanation was that he brought it by mistake.”

Chatty faces an additional weapons charge for a second gun discovered during the investigation and could face up to four years in prison.

Defence lawyer Nils Uggla said the case had become overblown because of its proximity to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Chatty’s Islamic religion and his time at a flight school in the United States.

“They have investigated everything there is to investigate,” Uggla said. “Despite this enormously careful investigation they have not found anything that indicates he was going to hijack a plane.”