Stockholm attack suspect admits to ‘terror crime’
STOCKHOLM: Suspected Stockholm truck attacker Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year- old Uzbek and jihadist sympathiser, admitted Tuesday to committing a “terrorist crime” by mowing down pedestrians on a busy street, killing four people and injuring 15 others.
“Akilov confesses to a terrorist crime and accepts his custody detention,” his lawyer Johan Eriksson told a custody hearing in a Stockholm district court.
Arrested in a Stockholm suburb just hours after Friday’s attack, Akilov appeared in a special heavily- guarded high- security courtroom.
Handcuffed and wearing a thick green hoodie over his head, he kept his head bowed down.
Judge Malou Lindblom ordered him to remove the hoodie and he complied, revealing dark hair with streaks of grey.
Akilov, a Russian speaker, had an interpreter at his side to help him follow the proceedings. He did not address the court directly.
After Eriksson’s statement, the judge agreed to the prosecution’s request to have the rest of the hearing held behind closed doors due to the classified nature of the information in the investigation.
After about an hour, journalists were readmitted into the courtroom and the judge remanded Akilov in custody.
Court documents seen by AFP showed Akilov, who is facing a lengthy prison sentence, had
Akilov confesses to a terrorist crime and accepts his custody detention. Johan Eriksson, Rakhmat Akilov’s lawyer
requested that his state-appointed lawyer Johan Eriksson be replaced by a Sunni Muslim, saying “only a lawyer of this faith could assert his interests in the best way”. The court refused the request. The four people killed in the attack were two Swedes – one woman and an 11-year- old girl – a British man, and a Belgian woman.
Eight people were still in hospital on Tuesday, including two in a critical condition.
Akilov, a construction worker who was refused permanent residency in Sweden in June 2016, went underground last year after receiving a deportation order, police said.
Friday’s attack resembled previous rampages using vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, which were all claimed by the Islamic State ( IS).
IS has not claimed responsibility for the Stockholm attack, but Swedish media reports on Monday said Akilov had told investigators that he had received an “order” from IS to carry out the attack against “infidels”.
The Aftonbladet newspaper reported that he had said he was “pleased with what he had done”. — AFP