Thousands attend Stockholm vigil, police probe suspect's IS sympathies
Linking arms, under flags flying at half-mast, the crowd held a minute of silence for the victims.
Stockholm officials said more than 20,000 people joined the vigil to commemorate Friday's attack
Recommended articles
Organisers said up to 50,000 people took part in the vigil, held after the driver of a stolen truck mowed down shoppers before slamming into the facade of the bustling Ahlens department store on Friday afternoon.
The motive was not known, but the method resembled previous attacks using vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, all of them claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
Police have only identified the suspected driver, arrested hours after the attack, as a 39-year-old man from Uzbekistan. Swedish media on Sunday gave his name as Rakhmat Akilov, a construction worker and father of four.
ADVERTISEMENT
According to police, the suspect was a sympathiser of extremist groups and was facing deportation after his residency permit application was denied.
He "showed sympathies for extremist organisations like IS," senior police officer Jonas Hysing told reporters.
A second suspect has also been formally placed under arrest over the attack, Stockholm district court judge Helga Hullman said Sunday, revealing no information about his link to the Uzbek.
Friday's attack has deeply shocked the usually tranquil Scandinavian nation, which prides itself on its openness and tolerance.
"It's very important to stay strong together against anything that wants to change our society, which is based on democracy," said one participant in the vigil who gave her name only as Marianne, attending with her elderly mother.
ADVERTISEMENT
"We talk, we don't fight," she told AFP as she joined the crowds thronging the Sergels Torg plaza, a stone's throw from the scene of the attack.
One woman offered flowers to police officers guarding the plaza. "Thank you," she said with a smile.
"Fear shall not reign. Terror cannot win," Stockholm mayor Karin Wanngard told the crowd, saying terrorism would be defeated with "kindness and openness".
"We don't respond with fear, we respond with love," read one poster held by a woman wearing a headscarf.
Suspect 'went underground'
ADVERTISEMENT
The Uzbek suspect had been due to be deported from Sweden after his residency application was rejected last year.
The man was told last December that he had four weeks to leave the country, but in February his case was handed over to the police "since the person had gone underground," Hysing told reporters.
Police apparently never found the man, whom authorities have said was known to Sweden's intelligence service for undisclosed reasons.
Media reports said the man did not come across as having been radicalised. "He partied and drank," one of his friends said.
The family of an 11-year-old Swedish girl have meanwhile confirmed she was one of the four people killed in the attack.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Foreign Office in London confirmed that a British man, 41-year-old Chris Bevington who was a top executive at Sweden-based music streaming company Spotify, was among the dead.
The Belgian foreign ministry also said a Belgian woman had been killed.
The fourth victim was a Swedish woman, according to local media. Fifteen people were injured, two of whom remained in critical condition on Sunday.
Friday's attack was the second terror attack in Stockholm.
In December 2010, a suicide bomber blew himself up, also on the Drottninggatan street, slightly injuring several passersby.
ADVERTISEMENT
Investigators said Sunday they had found components in a bag in the cab of the truck that could be used to make a "dangerous device".
Police said they were increasingly sure the Uzbek was the driver of the lorry.
Meanwhile in neighbouring Norway, the domestic intelligence agency on Sunday raised the national threat level, judging the risk of an attack was "probable" rather than "possible", notably because of the risk of a copycat assault.
The announcement came after a 17-year-old Russian was arrested on suspicion of placing a homemade bomb in central Oslo, which police detonated in a controlled explosion.
JOIN OUR PULSE COMMUNITY!
ADVERTISEMENT
Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:
Email: news@pulselive.co.ke
Next story