Suspect in Stockholm attack sympathized with Islamic State – police

An Uzbek man suspected of ramming a truck into a crowd in Stockholm, killing four people, had expressed sympathy for Islamic State and was wanted for failing to comply with a deportation order.

A Briton, a Belgian and two Swedes were killed in the truck attack on Friday. Another 15 people were injured when the hijacked veer delivery truck sped down the busiest shopping street in Sweden’s capital before crashing into a department store and catching fire.

Ten of those injured were still being treated in hospital, with two people in intensive care and another two in a serious condition.

The suspect was subsequently identified as a 39-year-old man from Uzbekistan and subsequently arrested. Police said he was known to authorities some years ago, but as a “more marginal character.”

“We know that the suspect had expressed sympathy for extremist organizations, among them IS,” Jonas Hysing, chief of national police operations, told a news conference, using an acronym for the ultra-hardline militant group.

There was no evidence to suggest any further attacks. Hysing said.

The man had 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.

Another person has been arrested in connection with the attack, a Swedish court official said. Five other people of interest to the investigation remain in custody. However, police said they were ever more convinced that the Uzbek man was the driver of the commandeered truck and may have acted alone.

The court official said the four people killed had been identified and their families notified.

“There are two Swedish citizens and two foreign citizens among the deceased, and the countries’ embassies are being contacted as we speak,” he said.

Following the attack, the Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, said “everything indicates that this is a terrorist attack”. He later vowed that he would not give in to attempts to destroy democracy.

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 Islamic State. There has been as yet no claim of responsibility for the Stockholm assault.

In neighbouring Norway early on Sunday, police set off a controlled explosion of a "bomb-like device" in central Oslo and took a suspect into custody. Police across the Nordic region went on heightened alert after the Stockholm attack.

Stockholm was returning to normality on Sunday with police barricades taken down along the Drottninggatan street where the attack took place.

Hundreds of flower bouquets covered steps leading down to the square next to where the truck ploughed into the Ahlens department store, with more piled up under boarded-up windows.

Sweden has long taken pride in its tolerant liberal democracy and been among the world's most welcoming nations to immigrants. But some Swedes are having second thoughts after more than 160,000 people, many from Syria, applied for asylum in 2015 in a nation of just 10 million.