Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Wednesday 12 april 2017

Lawyer: Uzbek man pleads guilty in Stockholm truck attack

DAVID KEYTON attorney — a Sunni lawyer
Associated Press — to replace Eriksson.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Police detained Akilov on
39-year-old old Uzbek man Friday after he drove the
has pleaded guilty to a ter- stolen beer truck into a
rorist crime after ramming a crowd outside an upscale
truck into a crowd in Stock- department store in cen-
holm, killing four people tral Stockholm in the after-
and wounding 15, his law- noon. He was formally ar-
yer said Tuesday. rested early Saturday.
The Stockholm District Court Police have not given a
ruled Tuesday that police motive for the attack and
may detain Rakhmat Aki- no extremist group has
lov for a month. After the claimed responsibility, but
court hearing, defense police chief Dan Eliasson
lawyer Johan Eriksson said said that after questioning
Akilov is “pleading guilty” him they have become in-
to Friday’s attack and that creasingly “convinced that
his client could remain we have the right suspect.”
jailed as long as it takes to “This detention order simply
resolve the case. reinforces what we already
It was not immediately know,” Eliasson said.
clear when Akilov made his Police said Akilov was
plea. The Stockholm court known to have been sym- Johan Eriksson, defence counsel for 39-year-old Uzbekistan national Rakhmat Akilov, prime sus-
pect in Friday’s truck attack, talks to media prior to remand hearings at Stockholm District Court,
earlier turned down Akilov’s pathetic to extremist or- Tuesday April 11, 2017. The four people killed in the attack included two Swedes, a British man and
request for a new defense ganizations but that there a Belgian woman.
(Jonas Ekstromer/TT via AP)
was nothing to indicate he have not been publicly said Tuesday that “the sus-
might plan an attack. His identified. picions have weakened”
Swedish residency applica- A regional newspaper, against a second man who
tion was rejected last year. Bohuslaningen, reported was detained Sunday as a
The four people killed were Tuesday that one of the possible accomplice.
two Swedes, a Belgian victims was a 69-year-old A statement from the of-
woman and a British man. woman from Ljungskile, in fice said he would not be
The British government has southwestern Sweden. set free, but instead “taken
identified the Briton as Chris Eight of those injured, two into custody due to a pre-
Bevington, an executive at seriously, were still being vious decision that he shall
Swedish music-streaming treated in the hospital. be expelled from Sweden.”
service Spotify. The others The prosecutor’s office It gave no more details.q
Russia:

8 arrested in connection with subway bombing

MOSCOW (AP) — Eight extremist groups but an un- Alexander Bortnikov, chief
members of extremist cells identified law enforcement of the FSB, the main succes-
have been arrested in con- official told the Tass news sor to the KGB intelligence
nection with last week’s agency that investigators agency, said in comments
deadly bombing on the were checking information carried by Russian news
subway in St. Petersburg, that he may have trained agencies on Tuesday that
Russia’s intelligence chief with the Islamic State group six members of terror cells
said Tuesday. in Syria. were detained in St. Peters-
The suicide bombing in Rus- Tass said he reportedly burg and two in Moscow
sia’s second largest city flew to Turkey in November in connection with the at-
killed 13 passengers and in- 2015 and spent a long time tack.
jured dozens of others. abroad. Bortnikov said all of them
Akbardzhon Dzhalilov, a No one has claimed re- hail from former Soviet
22-year old Kyrgyz-born sponsibility for the bomb- Central Asian republics
Russian national, has been ing, but Russian trains and and that the police found
identified as the bomber. planes long have been a large amount of weap-
Russian authorities have not targeted in bombings by ons and ammunition at
outlined his possible links to Islamist militants. their homes.q