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Hands up! I have a chocolate sword

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A passenger on board a Hong Kong-bound Cathay Pacific flight, armed with a Toblerone chocolate bar, demanded that the plane fly to Sochi so he could watch the Winter Olympics.

Antti Oskari Manselius, 23, from Finland, also made a false bomb threat on the Feb 14 flight from Amsterdam and said he was robbing the plane, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday.

Manselius pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct and giving false information about a bomb when he appeared in court on Thursday, the Post said.

He said he was trying to entertain the other passengers and was making "fun and jokes".

CHOCOLATE 'SWORD'

Two flight attendants told the court that they saw Manselius walking towards the cockpit. He had two blankets wrapped around his head and was wearing another like a cape.

He held the Toblerone chocolate bar "like a sword".

"He said, 'I am robbing the plane now. I want to see the Olympics in Sochi and I need to get off the plane now'," attendant Leung Hiu-lun told the court.

Mr Leung said the passenger was not violent, only waving the bar as he talked. He told him the service was a direct flight and would not stop in Russia.

The captain ordered that Manselius be handcuffed and a Finnish passenger, a former policeman and an aircrew safety trainer did so with the help of a cabin crew manager.

"They also cuffed his legs and fastened his chest with an extra seatbelt," the Post added.

After breakfast was served, Manselius fell asleep.

He was arrested in Hong Kong and sent to a psychiatric centre, the newspaper reported.