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The man suspected of carrying out the truck attack in Stockholm was an asylum seeker who was being sought by authorities for deportation, Swedish police say.
Key points:
- Suspect's residency application was rejected and he faced deportation
- National police say he was "sympathetic to extremist organisations, among them IS"
- Victims include 41yo Briton Chris Bevington, a Belgian woman and two Swedes
Four people, including a British man, a Belgian woman, and two Swedes, were killed on Friday (local time) when a stolen delivery truck crashed into crowds in central Stockholm.
Ten of the 15 people injured, including a child, are still being treated in hospital, with two adults in intensive care.
An Uzbek man suspected of being the driver of the hijacked delivery truck was arrested several hours after the attack.
Late on Sunday, Swedish police revealed more information about the man in a televised news conference, saying the 39-year-old was an asylum seeker and his application for a residence permit had been rejected in June 2016.
However, police could not find him for deportation because he was not at the address he had given, Jan Evenssen of the Stockholm police said.
Jonas Hysing, of Sweden's national police, added that authorities knew he was "sympathetic to extremist organisations, among them IS [the Islamic State group]".
He declined to name the suspect.
Mr Evenssen said police were holding five more people in connection with the deadly attack, after raids over the weekend, and that they had conducted about 500 interviews as part of the inquiry.
British father named as victim
The British man killed in the attack was named as 41-year-old Chris Bevington by the British Government on Sunday night.
In a statement, his father John Bevington said the family was "devastated by the untimely and tragic death of [their] talented, compassionate and caring son".
The statement said he was "a wonderful husband, son, father, brother and close friend to many".
On Sunday, tens of thousands of people gathered in bright sunshine on the downtown Sergels Torg (Sergels Square), near the site of the truck crash, for a memorial rally.
Rickard Sjoberg, one of the organisers, told the crowd there were probably people from out of town among them.
"But today, we're all Stockholmers," he said to huge applause.
On Monday (local time), Sweden will hold a minute's silence to honour Mr Bevington and the three others killed whose names have not yet been released.
City officials have had to relocate thousands of flowers left at a makeshift memorial for the dead, after an aluminium fence outside the targeted Ahlens department store was overwhelmed with tributes and threatened to collapse.
The fence had been put up to keep people away from the broken glass and twisted metal at the attack site, and to allow forensic experts and police to gather evidence.
The department store has said it will reopen on Monday (local time), but on Sunday it was forced to apologise for an announcement it made saying it would be selling damaged goods at a "reduced price".
On Facebook it wrote that the move was "a bad decision" and said its motivation "was born out of the idea of standing up for transparency and not allowing evil forces [to] take control of our lives".
Reuters/AP
Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, sweden
First posted