Stockholm truck attack suspect 'admits to terror crime’

The man suspected of carrying out the Stockholm truck attack has confessed to a "terrorist crime", his lawyer said.

In a court hearing on Tuesday, a lawyer for 39-year-old Uzbek Rakhmat Akilov said he had confessed to deliberately driving the stolen beer lorry into crowds along the busy Drottninggatan in the Swedish capital.

Four people were killed and another 15 injured in the attack on Friday.

"His position is that he admits to a terrorist crime and accepts therefore that he will be detained," lawyer Johan Eriksson said.

The rest of the court hearing was held behind closed doors.

Swedish police said Akilov was known to security services. He had been denied residency in Sweden and was wanted by police for failing to comply with a deportation order. He had also expressed sympathy for ISIS, they said.

On Monday, Akilov requested that his state-appointed lawyer be replaced with a Sunni Muslim. That request was denied.

He reportedly ran from the scene of the attack, still covered in blood and glass, and was arrested hours later in a northern suburb of Stockholm.

According to reports, he had left a wife and four children behind in Uzbekistan in order to earn money to send home.