Ryanair 'hijacker' charged with weapon possession

A Swede previously suspected of planning to hijack a London-bound airliner after a loaded gun was found in his luggage was formally charged today with illegal possession of a weapon.

Prosecutor Thomas Haeggstroem filed the charges against Kerim Chatty, 29, after dropping the hijack investigation last week, saying he couldn’t disprove the suspect’s claim that he just forgot the gun was in his bag.

Chatty, whose father is Tunisian and mother is Swedish, was arrested in August as he was about to board a Ryanair flight to Stansted.

Security officials at a regional airport in Vaesteraas, 60 miles north-west of the capital, Stockholm, found a pistol in his toiletries bag during a routine scan.

Chatty, who has previous assault and theft convictions, told investigators he found the gun in a borrowed car a few weeks before his arrest. He said he put it in his bag and forgot about it when he left for the airport as he was heading to an Islamic conference in Birmingham.

Another gun – unrelated to the Vaesteraas incident – turned up during the investigation and Chatty, was charged Friday with two counts of illegal possession of a weapon, Haeggstroem said.

The trial is expected to start within a month at the Vaesteraas district court. If convicted, Chatty faces up to four years in prison.