RTFri, 14 Apr 2017 22:03 UTC
© Maja Suslin / TT News Agency / ReutersThe Drottninggatan Street in central Stockholm, Sweden, April 7, 2017
Uzbekistan's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the suspect in the Stockholm truck attack, an Uzbek citizen, had been investigated for having terrorist sympathies. He apparently had called on his fellow Uzbeks to go to Syria and join Islamic State.
The statement said Rakhmad Akilov, 39, who is now in Swedish police custody, was flagged as a potential threat.
Uzbekistan had given information about the man to a western security service partnered with Sweden, it added.IS recruited Akilov himself after he left Uzbekistan in 2014, Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov told reporters on Friday.
Last Friday's assault took place in Drottninggatan, one of the Stockholm's main pedestrian areas, where a truck ploughed through a crowd, killing four and injuring over a dozen people.
The Swedish police identified the alleged perpetrator as a rejected asylum seeker and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) sympathizer. He managed to flee the scene, but was arrested after a manhunt.
Comment: Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov
said on April 14 that Akilov had been recruited by the Islamic State (IS) militant group after he left Uzbekistan in 2014 and settled in Sweden.
"According to the information in our possession, he actively urged his compatriots to travel to Syria to fight on Islamic State's side," Kamilov told journalists, adding that Akilov had used online messaging services.
"Earlier [before the attack], information on Akilov's criminal actions had been passed by security services to one of our Western partners so that the Swedish side could be informed," Kamilov said, without identifying the intermediary country or organization.
An unnamed Uzbek security source said this week that Akilov had attempted to reach Syria in 2015 to join IS but was detained at the Turkish-Syrian border and deported back to Sweden.
Comment: Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov said on April 14 that Akilov had been recruited by the Islamic State (IS) militant group after he left Uzbekistan in 2014 and settled in Sweden.