LONDON - 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, he 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.
Between September 1996 and June 1997, Chatty trained at the North American Institute of Aviation in Conway, South Carolina. As evidence of his criminal past and links to the Middle East built up, there were uneasy parallels with other al Qaeda suspects.
A friend of Chatty told Expressen newspaper that he had made several trips abroad and had been under investigation by Sapo, Sweden's security police. After September 11 he was questioned by the service to establish whether he had contacts within al Qaeda.
"He wanted to participate in jihad, but not in a random group," said the friend. "He was more into ideas about going to Chechnya and fighting the Russians. He talked a lot about Chechnya, as well as listening to speeches on tapes."
Chatty, born to a Tunisian father, Sadok Chatty, and a Swedish mother, Gunilla Christina, in Balstad, a Stockholm suburb, first encountered 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 in a martial arts movie, 9 Millimetre, alongside prestigious Swedish actors including Paolo Roberto and Mikael Persbrandt.
"I'm shocked to hear what he is suspected of," said 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 among 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.
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.
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 become 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. Shortly after September 11 he reportedly made a pilgrimage to Mecca.
As the first anniversary of September 11 approaches, Americans are wrestling with different emotions. Many wish it were already past. They feel overloaded by media images of that awful day. And now some will feel nervous too.
Many, including the federal Government, believe that September 11 is the day terrorists may want to strike again.
The news from Sweden is helping to stoke the unease.
And yesterday a US federal air marshal pointed a gun towards passengers on a flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia for about 30 minutes while detaining an unruly passenger.
Passengers on Delta Flight 442 said that one marshal kept his gun pointed at the coach cabin while the other huddled over the detainee, who was released after the plane landed.
No wonder officials expect many ordinary Americans to stay at home on September 11. Some schools in Manhattan will be closed. Commuters will be loath to board crowded trains and buses. Travellers will surely stay away from planes.
One US carrier, Spirit Airlines, has already declared that all tickets on its routes that day will be free. It is partly a gesture to the heroes of last September, partly recognition that without the giveaway the seats on their planes would remain largely empty. Other airlines are slashing their schedules.
In a surprising blunder, the Pentagon fuelled the public disquiet last week by announcing plans to ban international airlines from flying in and out of the New York City and Washington DC areas on the anniversary, as well as in airspace above Pennsylvania, where a fourth airliner crashed en route to an unknown target.
The White House scotched the idea when foreign airlines objected. But the damage was done.
- INDEPENDENT
Story archives:
Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Hijack suspect stirs fears in Sept 11 run-up
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