Stockholm: Suspected Stockholm truck attacker Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek and jihadist sympathiser, admitted on Tuesday to committing a “terrorist crime” and told police he did it to “stop the bombing in Syria.” Akilov had mowed down pedestrians on a busy street last week, killing four people and injuring 15 others. “Akilov confesses to a terrorist crime and accepts his custody detention,” his lawyer Johan Eriksson told a custody hearing in a Stockholm district court.
Arrested in a Stockholm suburb just hours after Friday's attack, Akilov appeared in a special heavily-guarded high-security courtroom. Handcuffed and wearing a thick green hoodie over his head, he kept his head bowed down. Akilov, a Russian speaker, had an interpreter at his side to help him follow the proceedings. He did not address the court directly. “The bombing in Syria must stop,” he reportedly said during an interrogation, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. He requested that he be defended by a Sunni Muslim, but this was rejected in court, the Telegraph reported.
