Swedish media name truck attack suspect

STOCKHOLM: Swedish media on Sunday identified the main suspect in the Stockholm truck attack as Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek construction worker and father-of-four who went underground to avoid being deported from Sweden.

Dailies Expressen and Aftonbladet published Akilov’s name and picture on Sunday.

Swedish police have only identified the suspect as a 39-year-old man from Uzbekistan. He is suspected of driving a stolen beer truck down a busy pedestrian street mowing down shoppers before smashing into the facade of the Ahlens department store.

Four people were killed -- two Swedes including an 11-year-old girl, and a British man and a Belgian woman -- and 15 others were injured.

The suspect was arrested Friday evening in Marsta, a suburb around 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Stockholm.

According to sources close to the investigation, the suspect, bloodied from the crash, fled the scene and ran into the nearby T-centralen subway station, taking advantage of the panic to blend into the crowd. Video surveillance cameras caught him in the subway system.

He then took an express train to Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, and a bus from the airport to Marsta. His odd behaviour at a petrol station convenience store raised sales clerks’ attention, who alerted police.

Police arrested the man at the wheel of a white van, media said, and placed him under arrest on suspicion of “terrorist crime (by committing) murder”.