Sweden holds minute of silence for attack victims
stockholm — Swedes observed a minute of silence across the country on Monday for the victims of last week’s truck attack in Stockholm by an Uzbek man police believe was a militant sympathiser.
A huge crowd gathered solemnly outside the Ahlens department store at the corner of the Drottninggatan pedestrian street, where a stolen beer truck mowed down shoppers before ploughing into the store’s facade, killing four people and injuring 15.
Swedish court documents obtained by AFP identified the suspect as Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek national.
Media reports said he had confessed, claiming he had been ordered by the Daesh group to carry out the attack against “infidels”. Under grey and rainy skies, the crowd observed a minute of silence at noon (1000 GMT), many visibly moved, with tears streaming down their cheeks as a sea of flowers and candles covered the ground.
“I just want to cry, many died here. For nothing,” said Fadi Mdalal, from Syria, who was among those at the scene.
The four dead were two Swedes, one of them an 11-year-old girl, a British man, and a Belgian woman.
Many people thanked and hugged police officers guarding the scene, some offering them flowers, for their widely-praised response to the attack.
At the same time, an official ceremony was held outside Stockholm’s City Hall, attended by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, King Carl XVI Gustaf and most of the royal family, and Stockholm mayor Karin Wanngard. —