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Uzbekistan|life|April 10, 2017 / 09:48 AM
39-year-old Uzbek suspected of Stockholm lorry attack was refused residency

AKIPRESS.COM - The suspect behind the Stockholm truck attack, a 39-year-old Uzbek, had been facing deportation and had extremist sympathies, Swedish police say.

He is suspected of having driven a truck into a department store in the city on Friday. His application for residency was rejected in June last year and he was being sought by immigration officials, AFP reported citing police.

But by February, he had “gone underground” and his case was handed over to police, police chief Jonas Hysing told reporters in Stockholm on Sunday.

Two sources who had worked with the suspect, Rakhmat Akilov, independently identified him to Reuters from images distributed by police as the manhunt got underway on Friday.

Two police spokespersons declined to confirm his identity as did the suspect's court-appointed lawyer.

A former co-worker of Akilov contacted by Reuters said Akilov had never expressed any religious views and also said that the man he shared a flat with near Stockholm was said to be "devastated" to hear Akilov may be responsible for the attack.

Akilov was detained at around 9 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Friday in a northern Stockholm suburb hours after police say he hijacked a truck and plowed through a pedestrian shopping street in central Stockholm, killing four and injuring 15.

Police said he had previously turned up in information gathered by Swedish security services. "He was a marginal character," said Sweden's national police chief Dan Eliasson. He did not figure in any of their investigations immediately prior to the attack.

Police have also said the suspect had shown sympathies for extremist organizations, including Islamic State and that he was wanted for failing to comply with a deportation order after his application for residency was denied.

Akilov's former co-worker, who had worked with him at a construction company in Sweden and did not wish to be named, said Akilov was a father who sent money home to a wife and several children living in Uzbekistan.

A second suspect, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested on Sunday. That person can be detained until Wednesday, at which point prosecutors would have to ask a court for permission to extend their detention.

However, Reuters news agency said the person was arrested on “a lower degree of suspicion” than the first suspect.

Security officials in neighboring Norway, where a 17-year-old asylum-seeker from Russia was detained early Sunday in connection with an explosive device found near a busy subway station, spoke of the alarming potential for a copycat effect.

Norwegian’s security agency said it wasn’t clear if the teen planned to carry out an attack with the primitive homemade device police defused without any injuries. Agency head Benedicte Bjornland said it was likely the youth had been inspired by recent attacks in Stockholm, France, Germany, Britain and Russia. “The attacks demonstrate how easy such attacks can be carried out, and prove to others that it is possible to make something similar,” Bjornland said.

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