Defendant in truck attack to plead guilty, lawyer says
STOCKHOLM — A 39-year-old Uzbek man who has been held after Sweden’s worst terrorist attack in decades intends to plead guilty, his lawyer said in court Tuesday.
Appearing in public for the first time since his capture, the man, Rakhmat Akilov, entered Sweden’s largest secured courtroom, a subterranean space at Stockholm District Court. It was only three-quarters of a mile from Drottninggatan, the street where Akilov steered a stolen beer truck into a crowd of pedestrians Friday afternoon, killing four people and injuring 15 others. He was arrested about five hours later in a suburb north of Stockholm.
Accompanied by a lawyer and a Russianlanguage interpreter, Akilov was led into court by two police officers who gripped a black belt secured around his waist.
Akilov had a green fleece jacket wrapped around his head, preventing the dozens of journalists on hand from seeing his face, but the judge ordered him to remove it. He was not handcuffed. Underneath, he was wearing a pajamalike uniform.
Akilov’s court-appointed defense lawyer, Johan Eriksson, said the defendant “admits to having committed the terrorist crime” and did not oppose his continued detention.
The prosecutor, Hans Ihrman, had asked the judge to close the proceedings to the public, and Eriksson agreed.
After reporters were let back in, the judge, Malou Lindblom, said she had ordered Akilov held until May 11, citing the risk that he might disappear, damage evidence or “continue with criminal activity.” He is being held on suspicion of terrorist murder.
Akilov had asked that a Sunni Muslim lawyer be appointed for him, instead of Eriksson, arguing that “only a lawyer of this faith could assert his interests in the best way,” but that request was denied.