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News > World

Uzbek Suspect in Sweden Attack Is a Rejected Asylum Seeker

  • People leaving flowers on the steps on Sergels Torg following Friday's terror attack in central Stockholm.

    People leaving flowers on the steps on Sergels Torg following Friday's terror attack in central Stockholm. | Photo: Reuters

Published 9 April 2017
Opinion

Swedish authorities said the man who carried out the truck attack had expressed sympathies for the Islamic State group.

An Uzbek man suspected of ramming a truck into a crowd in Stockholm, killing four people, had expressed sympathy for the Islamic State group and was wanted for failing to comply with a deportation order, Swedish police said Sunday.

Another 15 people were injured Friday when a hijacked beer delivery truck barreled down a busy shopping street before crashing into a department store and catching fire. The Uzbek was arrested several hours later.

"We know that the suspect had expressed sympathy for extremist organizations, among them IS," Jonas Hysing, chief of national police operations, told a news conference, using an acronym for the ultra-hardline extremist group.

In Europe, vehicles have also been used as deadly weapons in attacks in Nice, Berlin and London over the past year and were claimed by Islamic State. There has been as yet no claim of responsibility for the Stockholm assault.

The Stockholm suspect, aged 39 and from the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, applied for permanent residence in Sweden in 2014. But his bid was rejected and he was wanted for disregarding an order for his deportation, Hysing said.

Police had been looking for him since the Nordic country's Migration Agency in December gave him four weeks to leave the country.

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