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Ryanair settles with Persson and Freivalds

Budget airline Ryanair has settled a lawsuit out of court brought by Sweden's ex-prime minister Göran Persson after it used his picture in an advertisement without his consent, his lawyer said on Monday.

Published: 17 December 2007 16:53 CET

“They reached an agreement … to settle. The agreement is for two payments of €4,000 ($5,750), that is to say €8,000, to Mr. Persson and Mrs. (Laila) Freivalds,” the former foreign minister whose image was also used, their lawyer, Lennart Kanter, told AFP.

The Ryanair advertisement was published in the Swedish press in February 2006.

In a reference to a crisis of confidence that shook the Swedish government following the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster, and which continued throughout 2005, the Irish carrier published a photograph of Persson and Freivalds under the caption “Time to flee the country?”.

With €4,000 per person, the two political figures received half of what they had sought.

Both Persson and Freivalds will donate the money to undisclosed charities, Kanter said.

UPDATE: Ryanair passenger jet makes emergency landing in Berlin over 'fake bomb threat'

A Ryanair flight making an emergency landing

The flight from Dublin to Krakow made the unexpected diversion after a reported bomb threat, German newspaper Bild Zeitung said.

“We were notified by the Krakow airport that an airport employee received a phone call saying an explosive device had been planted on the plane,” said regional police spokesman, Sebastian Glen.

“German police checked and there was no device, no bomb threat at all. So we know this was a false alarm,” he told AFP on Monday.

“The perpetrator has not been detained, but we are doing everything possible to establish their identity,” Glen added, saying the person faces eight years in prison.

With 160 people on board, the flight arrived at the Berlin Brandenburg airport shortly after 8 pm Sunday, remaining on the tarmac into early Monday morning.

A Berlin police spokesperson said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The passengers will resume their journey to Poland on board a spare aeroplane,” she told AFP, without giving more precise details for the alert.

The flight was emptied with the baggage also searched and checked with sniffer dogs, German media reported.

The passengers were not able to continue their journey until early Monday morning shortly before 4:00 am. The federal police had previously classified the situation as harmless. The Brandenburg police are now investigating the case.

Police said that officers had completed their security checks “without any danger being detected”.

“The Ryanair plane that made an emergency landed reported an air emergency and was therefore immediately given a landing permit at BER,” airport spokesman Jan-Peter Haack told Bild.

“The aircraft is currently in a safe position,” a spokeswoman for the police told the newspaper.

The incident comes a week after a Ryanair flight was forced to divert to Belarus, with a passenger — a dissident journalist — arrested on arrival.

And in July last year, another Ryanair plane from Dublin to Krakow was forced to make an emergency landing in London after a false bomb threat.

READ ALSO: Germany summons Belarus envoy over forced Ryanair landing

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