Man Charged With Attempted Hijack

A Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin has been charged with planning to hijack a plane after a handgun was found in his luggage as he prepared to board a flight to England.

The man was about to board a Ryanair flight from Sweden to Stansted when the weapon was found in his carry-on luggage.

He was part of a group of 20 people on their way to an Islamic conference in Birmingham.

Security officers arrested the man after they found the gun in a toiletries bag when they scanned the man's hand luggage yesterday, according to police spokesman Ulf Palm.

The 29 year-old man lived in Stockholm but was not otherwise identified.

"We believe he was going to hijack the plane," Mr Palm said.

Mr Palm said authorities were investigating possible terrorist links. Police would not say whether the gun was loaded.

The other members of the group the man accompanied - 18 adults and two children - were questioned for several hours at police headquarters but had been released and were not suspected of any crime, Mr Palm said.

A hearing will be held this week to determine if the suspect, who also faces a secondary charge of illegal possession of a firearm, should be kept in police custody pending the investigation.

The suspect was booked on a flight from Vaesteraas, 62 miles west of Stockholm, to Stansted airport.

Several passengers who had already boarded the plane, a Boeing 737-800 with 189 people on board, were evacuated while police searched the cabin and luggage compartment.

The plane, which was expected to arrive at Stansted at about 11pm last night, took off just before midnight last night.

A charge of planning to hijack a plane could carry a sentence of six months to life in prison, depending on severity, Mr Palm said.

Last night, a spokesman from the sixth annual Da'wah conference at Birmingham said his organisation condemned any form of terrorism

Yusuf Bowers said he did not know of any people coming from Sweden to the conference, run by Salafi Publications, which runs until Sunday.

Abu Kahadeejah, one of the conference organisers, said he was not aware the man was a delegate.

He told BBC Radio WM: "I don't think he was heading for the conference and even if he was, I don't think he would have made it with a gun in his bag."

Mr Kahadeejah said up to 3,000 delegates were expected at the conference starting today in Small Heath. Terrorism is one of the subjects on its agenda.

"It is something we would distance ourselves from and condemn unconditionally," he said.

"The bottom line with regard to the Islamic creed and to the original source of Islam is that all this type of behaviour is forbidden."