Stockholm attacker lands in jail for life


FE Team | Published: June 07, 2018 22:06:55 | Updated: June 09, 2018 15:20:26


Stockholm attacker lands in jail for life

An Uzbek man who carried out a lorry attack which killed five people in Sweden last year has been sentenced to life for terrorist crimes.

Rakhmat Akilov, 40, had expressed sympathy for the Islamic State (IS) group before the attack in Stockholm.

But prosecutors had to prove he intended to harm the state, as IS did not say it was behind the attack.

Akilov, a rejected asylum seeker, fled the scene but was quickly arrested and confessed during police interrogation, reports BBC.

He left Uzbekistan for Sweden in 2014 and sought residency there, but in December 2016 he was told that he had four weeks to leave the country.

He disappeared and, a few months before the attack, was put on an official wanted list.

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