Dutch to free arrested passengers

AMSTERDAM - Dutch authorities will release all 12 passengers arrested on a US Northwest Airlines plane bound for India yesterday after concluding they were not planning an attack, prosecutors said today.

"From the statements of suspects and witnesses, no evidence could be brought forward that these men were about to commit an act of violence," a prosecution statement said, adding police had searched for explosives on the plane but found none.

Prosecutors told a news conference the crew had raised the alarm after the men handed each other mobile phones and laptops during the flight and refused to follow their instructions.

"It does not appear to be terror-related," Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner told journalists in The Hague earlier.

Police at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport arrested 12 of the 149 passengers on Northwest Airlines flight 42 on Wednesday, after the 273-seat DC10-30 plane turned back, accompanied by two Dutch F-16 warplanes.

Security has been increased at airports worldwide in the past two weeks after British police said they had foiled a plot to blow up planes over the Atlantic using liquid explosives.

Mumbai has been on high alert since commuter train bombings on July 11 that killed 186 people.

Passengers on the plane said air marshals intervened after the men began fidgeting with mobile phones and plastic bags.

"I thought that the men were celebrating a stag party," Simon Balakrishwan, a 43-year-old passenger from India, told the NRC Handelsblad daily.

"After the plane took off a mobile phone rang and the men started cheering," he said. "They kept exchanging plastic bags and looking in them and laughing. Irritating passengers."

Indian junior foreign minister Anand Sharma told reporters all 12 were born in Mumbai.

An Indian Foreign Ministry official said all were of Indian origin, although some apparently held other passports. Dutch authorities granted consular access to the Indian nationals.

The Northwest flight departed for Mumbai, India's financial hub, today after the rest of the passengers spent the night in hotels.

The return of the Northwest plane to Amsterdam did not lead to heightened security and did not affect other flights at Schiphol, Europe's third largest cargo airport and fourth biggest passenger hub, an airport spokeswoman said.

- REUTERS