 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Terrorism: Sweden Sets Suspected Ryanair Hijacker Free">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
By Peter Starck -
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish man arrested last month when he tried to board a London-bound Ryanair plane with a loaded gun in his hand luggage was released on Monday for lack of evidence.
But Sweden's chief prosecutor said the decision to release Kerim Sadok Chatty did not mean the suspicion of a planned hijacking has been written off.
"The investigation of that suspicion continues," prosecutor Thomas Haggstrom said in a statement.
Chatty, a 29-year-old Muslim of Tunisian origin, was set free at 10:00 a.m. (4 a.m. EDT). He has admitted to having the gun, but denies having planned a hijack.
On Monday, Haggstrom said there was "reasonable cause" for suspicion of a planned hijack. Previously the level of suspicion was classed as "probable cause," and the development prompted Chatty's lawyer Nils Uggla to say the prosecutor should drop the case.
"The fact that the degree of suspicion has been lowered shows that we have been right all the time," Uggla told Reuters.
Haggstrom also said: "Nothing in the investigation indicates that Chatty would have intended to crash the plane against any target in Sweden or in any other country."
Coming two weeks before the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, the incident at Vasteras airport 100 km (60 miles) west of Stockholm became particularly sensitive when it emerged that Chatty had taken flying lessons in the United States.
Several of the hijackers suspected of carrying out the September 11 attacks learned to fly at U.S. aviation schools.
COPYCAT ATTACK?
Intelligence sources said initially they believed the suspect was planning to hijack a plane and crash it into a U.S. embassy in Europe in a copycat strike of the attacks on New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon.
"The picture has changed. We have not been able to compile the evidence we thought we would in the beginning," a source at Sweden's security police Sapo told Reuters on Monday.
Chatty, who has previous convictions for theft, assault and petty offences -- including an attack on a U.S. embassy marine guard in a gym in 1999 -- discovered religion in recent years and studied Islam, visiting Saudi Arabia.
Uggla urged prosecutors to drop the case.
"If the prosecutor, with the help of all of Sapo's resources, has not found anything more in a whole month, then they should drop the whole case," he said.
Chatty must remain in the Stockholm metropolitan area and report regularly to the police, Haggstrom said.
Uggla told Britain's Sky television by telephone he was sure that the case would not end up in a trial about hijacking.
"It will end up in a trial about this illegal gun," he said. "The reason why he had this gun in his luggage I'm not allowed to tell you about."
The investigation has been classified as secret.
A district court had ordered Chatty detained twice for periods of two weeks, pending further investigations and formal charges. The second detention period ended on September 30 and the court had said Haggstrom must lay charges by then.
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1512614
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