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Stockholm attacker charged with terror crimes

30 January, 2018 | Filed under: All News,more news,Opinion,RECENT POSTS,Somali news | Posted by:

Swedish prosecutors have charged Uzbek national Rakhmat Akilov with terrorism for carrying out last year’s truck attack on Drottninggatan in central Stockholm.

Stockholm attacker charged with terror crimes
Terror attacked Rakhmat Akilov captured on CCTV on the day of the attack. Photo: Police

Hans Ihrman, the lead prosecutor in the case, began the press conference on Tuesday morning with a pledge to prevent Akilov from Sweden’s streets for the rest of his life.

 “My goal is that he should never again be able to move freely in our society,” he said.

 Akilov has been charged with terrorism, attempted terrorism, and causing danger for others, according to official charges published on Tuesday morning.

According documents released on Tuesday, Akilov hijacked a lorry and then drove along Drottninggatan, a busy pedestrianised shopping street, at high speed.

He then attempted to detonate a home-made shrapnel bomb constructed out of five butane gas canisters, surrounded by screws, a knife blade and other metal objects.

 Akilov has already confessed to driving the truck in last spring’s attack, killing five people and injuring many more, with 150 people listed as plaintiffs.

 But in the documents, prosecutors said that Akilov had clearly intended to create fear amongst the Swedish population.

“It was even part of the purpose to force the government and parliament to break off Swedish cooperation in military training programmes carried out as part of the global coalition against Islamic State,” the prosecutors wrote in the summons application.

According to the document, Akilov uploaded a film to his mobile phone a few hours before the attack, which included the words, “now it is time to die”.

In the months leading up to the attack, he had also chatted online with several people with radical Islamic links, offering to carry out an attack for the Islamic State terror group.

 The prosecution shows that the attack was pre-planned months in advance.

 Ihrman provided photographs showing Akilov surveying the area where the attack took place, photographing Drottninggatan, and nearby Hötorget Square, apparently in an attempt to identify a suitable place for an attack.

 According to the charge sheet, he also googled the phrase “gay club Stockholm”.

 The preliminary investigation released on Tuesday runs to 9,000 pages and includes 1,700 separate interviews.

Source:Thelocal.se