Stockholm truck attack suspect showed interest in ISIS: Police

Stockholm: The suspected Stockholm truck attacker had shown interest in extremist groups and was facing deportation after being refused residency, Swedish police said on Sunday.

A second suspect has been formally placed under arrest in connection with the attack that killed four people and injured 15 others, the Stockholm district court said on Sunday.

The news came as thousands of people gathered under sunny spring skies amid a sea of flowers and candles to honour the dead and to stand against terrorism.

The first suspect, identified only as a 39-year-old man from Uzbekistan who was arrested hours after Friday’s attack, is suspected of having sped a stolen beer truck several hundred metres down the bustling pedestrian street Drottninggatan in the heart of Stockholm.

The vehicle mowed down shoppers before slamming into the facade of the busy Ahlens department store.

The motive for the attack was not known, but the method resembled previous attacks using vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, all of them claimed by the Islamic State group. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the Stockholm attack — the third in Europe in two weeks, after a car and knife assault outside London’s parliament and the Saint Petersburg metro bombing.

The 39-year-old suspect in the Stockholm attack “showed interest for extremist organisations like ISIS,” police chief Jonas Hysing told reporters.

Swedish Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Karin Rosander said meanwhile that the second suspect was arrested “on suspicion of a terrorist crime (by committing) murder”, the same accusation as against the first suspect. No other details about the person were disclosed. The family of an 11-year-old Swedish girl confirmed she was one of the four people killed in the attack.

The Foreign Office in London said Swedish police had confirmed to them that a British man was among the dead, while the Belgian foreign ministry said a Belgian woman had been killed.

The fourth victim was only known to be a Swedish national. Fifteen people were injured, four of whom were in critical condition.