Uzbek suspect in Swedish attack sympathized with ISIS
None
An Uzbek man suspected of ramming a truck into a crowd in Stockholm, killing four people, had expressed sympathy for ISIS and was wanted for failing to comply with a deportation order, Swedish police said on Sunday.
Another 15 people were injured on 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 ISIS," Jonas Hysing, chief of national police operations, told a news conference.
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 ISIS. 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. He had not been known as a militant threat by the security services before Friday's attack.
Two of the dead were Swedes, one was a British citizen and the other from Belgium, Hysing said.
