STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 26 (UPI) -- A Swedish bus company is investigating allegations that one of its drivers made "foreign-looking" passengers ride on a separate bus.
People Travel Group CEO Christer Litzell said the company has been unable to confirm a passenger's story, the TT news agency reported. The passenger, Samer Chatila, made the allegation in an interview with the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, but Litzell said the company has been unable to locate Chatila.
Chatila said the driver placed riders who looked Swedish on one bus and those who were "foreign-looking" on another.
"What's important for us is that we now do the right thing moving forward. None of our passengers should ever feel discriminated against in any way," Litzell said.
The bus was carrying passengers from Stockholm to Grisslehamn, a small port near the capital that is home to the Swedish terminus for the ferry to Aland Island in Finland.
The driver, who has been suspended, denied the story in an interview with company officials Monday, Litzell said. He said a meeting was planned for Tuesday that would include representatives of the ferry company.
"He doesn't really have the same understanding of events that's been in the newspapers. It's one person's word against another's, which makes it a little tougher," Litzell told TT.
There have also been allegations of a similar incident in December involving a bus carrying passengers from Orebro to the Viking Lines terminus in Stockholm on Dec. 21. Viking Lines says there was only one bus on the route on Dec. 21.
