STOCKHOLM, Sept 1: Swedish police scrambled on Sunday 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 Sept 11 attacks on the United States.
Intelligence and police sources said on Saturday the man, whom Swedish media have identified as 29-year old Kerim Chatty, had been planning to hijack a Ryanair flight to Britain and crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe.
He was arrested on Thursday after a gun was found in his hand luggage at Sweden’s Vasteras airport, west of Stockholm. Any charges must be brought by a Monday noon deadline under Swedish law.
“It’s hectic. There are many things we have to do. We do not want him to be set free on Monday,” police spokesman Ulf Palm told Reuters.
A top police official said the man had taken flying lessons in the United States and a newspaper reported police had already questioned him since September 11 after he visited Saudi Arabia.
Sweden’s Aftonbladet tabloid said Swedish security services had interviewed Chatty about possible contacts with radical Muslim groups after he returned from Saudi Arabia where he had been studying Islam.
Chatty’s lawyer said on Sunday his client admitted having a gun as he tried to board the aircraft in Sweden but denied planning a September 11-style attack.
“He says he has nothing to do with any hijacking or terrorism,” lawyer Nils Uggla told Britain’s Sky News TV. “He admits that he had a gun.”
A highly-placed intelligence source said police were hunting four more men, including an explosives expert, who were believed to have worked on the plan with the suspect.
FLYING LESSONS: Linderoth told Swedish radio that the suspect had taken flying lessons in the United States but had not completed his training. It was possible he had qualified since then, she said.
James Lamb, assistant chief flight instructor with the North American Institute of Aviation in Conway, South Carolina, said an FBI agent was at the school on Saturday seeking information on Kerim Chatty, a former student who attended the school from September 1996 to April 1997. Lamb said Chatty had been “terminated” for poor performance and lack of progress.
“He was a very substandard student,” Lamb said, noting most students acquire a private pilot’s licence within seven to nine months of training. — Reuters