Film extra with a criminal record and a gun in his bag

A muscular, athletic and bearded keep-fit fanatic, Kerim Chatty cultivated the image of a man of action but had the track record of a violent career criminal.

As the alleged hijacker entered his third day of interrogation by Swedish detectives, Chatty emerged as a man with a confused history as a gun-toting martial arts expert, movie extra, would-be pilot, Muslim fundamentalist and fringe member of the Swedish underworld.

But a far more frightening image of Chatty as a potential terrorist and hijacker emerged yesterday, with the revelation that he had taken pilot training at a flying school in the United States five years ago.

This echo of the flying courses taken by several of the 11 September hijackers will have sent a chill through security experts and airlines around the world and deepened fears about his true intentions as he boarded Ryanair flight FR685 from the small rural airport of Vasteras to Stansted on Thursday afternoon.

Soon after his arrest was announced, many security experts played down the chances that Chatty, 29, was a highly-trained al-Qa'ida member or had carefully planned his attack. After all, he attempted to pass through a security check and X-ray machine with a handgun in his toilet bag, and gave up without any resistance.

That sense of reassurance evaporated yesterday, after the Reuters wire service quoted anonymous Swedish security sources as claiming:"We know for sure that the plan was to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe." Swedish terrorism police were also allegedly searching for four accomplices, including an explosives expert. These claims were then repeated by US Central Intelligence Agency sources, who said that Swedish security had made identical allegations to the agency.

However, the allegations were quickly and comprehensively quashed by Margareta Linderoth, director of the Swedish security police, SAPO. "It's false information... I deny it absolutely," she said.

Ms Linderoth did confirm thatbetween September 1996 and June 1997, Chatty trained at the North American Institute of Aviation in Conway, South Carolina. However, it was not clear whether he was able to fly. Swedish tabloids said Chatty obtained a certificate, but John Trautman, a spokesman for the school, said: "Unfortunately I cannot see whether he finally received a diploma or not."

But as evidence of Chatty's criminal past and links to the Middle East built up, there were uneasy parallels with other al-Qa'ida suspects.

Born to a Tunisian father, Sadok Chatty, and Swedish mother, Gunilla Christina, in Balstad, a suburb of Stockholm, Chatty had his first encounter with the police in 1991 when he was convicted of illegal driving. A year later came convictions for violent conduct, possessing an unlicensed shotgun, handling stolen goods and drink-driving. Yet, he also saw success as an athlete, winning a gold medal in a Swedish martial arts championship in 1994. After his return from South Carolina in 1997, Chatty landed a role on a martial arts movie, 9 Millimetre, alongside prestigious Swedish actors such as Paolo Roberto and Mikael Persbrandt. "I'm shocked to hear what he is suspected of," said Mr Roberto. "I know he has had a past, but I did not believe that he would walk around with a gun."

Within a year of his movie debut, Chatty became involved with the mafia, allegedly circulating amongst Yugoslav gangsters and other senior members of Stockholm's underworld. In April of the same year, Chatty was arrested carrying a 9mm Glock pistol and a CZ gun, both equipped with silencers.

In 1999 came a one year prison sentence when he was convicted, with two other men, of grievous bodily harm to an American marine based at the embassy in Stockholm. During the assault, allegedly in revenge for an earlier incident, the marine was threatened with a gun and severely injured.

But that year, Chatty also began to embrace radical Islam and adopt Muslim religious customs. He frequently visited a mosque on Medborgarplassen, in a suburb of Stockholm, and is believed to have there became a devotee of the ultra-orthodox Salafi teachings of Islam.

In 2000, he travelled on his own to Yemen, a centre for Islamic radical groups, to meet friends. And, in the weeks after September 11, he reportedly went on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Yesterday, Chatty's lawyer Nils Uggla issued his first statement, denying that he had any intention to either hijack the plane or commit any atrocities. Chatty, he said, deeply regretted causing trouble for the 20 other people in his party on board the aircraft.

"He denies that this has anything at all to do with terrorism or airplane hijacking," Mr Uggla said. "He is deeply sorry that he caused trouble for the others who were travelling."

Now in a Swedish high security prison, Chatty will appear in court tomorrow. The former movie star and medal-winning sportsman faces life imprisonment.