Ebba Akerlund

On 7 April 2017, a vehicle-ramming terrorist attack took place in central Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. A hijacked truck was deliberately driven into crowds along Drottninggatan (Queen Street) before being crashed into an Åhléns department store. Five people were killed and 14 others were seriously injured.

The perpetrator was Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old rejected asylum seeker and a citizen of Uzbekistan, who was apprehended several hours later. He had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State in a self-recorded video the day before the attack, and Uzbek authorities alleged that he had joined the group. Akilov was convicted of murder and terrorist crimes, and sentenced to life in prison and, if released, deportation to Uzbekistan and lifetime expulsion from Sweden.

Attack

Akilov chose to attack during an afternoon, as there were many tourists in the area. Akilov recorded a number of films in the Odenplan area where he is heard saying that it is time to kill "infidels" and that it grieved him how Muslims in the Levant and Afghanistan were dying. The attack took place at about 14:53 local time. It began when a truck for the Spendrups brewery was hijacked while making a delivery on the street Adolf Fredriks kyrkogata in central Stockholm. According to a Spendrups press release, the driver attempted to stop the hijacker by standing in front of the truck, but had to jump out of the way and was slightly injured when the hijacker accelerated toward him.

The hijacker then drove the truck at high speed into a pedestrian street, going about 500 meters down Drottninggatan, one of Stockholm's main shopping streets, hitting pedestrians along the way. Witnesses said the hijacker attempted to target children as he zigzagged on the street. The attack ended when the truck slammed into the Åhléns City department store on the corner of Drottninggatan and Mäster Samuelsgatan. The truck caught fire, but the flames were quickly doused by firefighters. The hijacker jumped out and fled the scene.

A homemade bomb was reportedly found in the truck after it was abandoned by the hijacker. Police sources said the device was found in a bag and had not been detonated, adding that the attacker had been burned by it. National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson later said they had found a suspicious object in the driver's seat that "could be a bomb or an incendiary device", and was pending further investigation.

Aftermath

Immediate response

The Parliament House and the metro system were locked down in response to the attack, and Stockholm Central Station was evacuated. All trains to and from Stockholm were put on hold, with traffic only resuming later in the evening.

The Swedish Prime Minister said in a press statement that the attack appeared to be terrorism, and that police and security services were treating it as such. Two days after the attack, the prime minister said the following:

King Carl XVI Gustaf, on behalf of the Royal Family, gave their condolences, stating, "Our hearts go out to the victims of this terrible tragedy, and to their families".

Swedish media reported on those who chose to help the injured, especially medical doctors working nearby who ran to help those in need. Police from all over Stockholm were called in to assist after the attack.

Swedish border controls were tightened following the attack, and travelers from other countries, including Nordic countries, were advised by police to bring their passports. However, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) did not raise the risk assessment from "level 3" (on a scale of 1 to 5), the level it had been at since 2010.

On the day of the attack, Norwegian police said officers in the country's largest cities and at Oslo Airport would be armed. The day after the attack, a man was arrested and part of the Grønland district of Oslo closed off by police after a "bomb-like" device was found, which was later destroyed in a controlled explosion. The man, a 17-year-old Russian citizen, was charged on 9 April with illegal possession of an explosive device. The man arrived with his family in Norway as an asylum seeker in 2010, and was known to the Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) for having expressed support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). With his background from the Caucasus, the 17-year-old has been linked to two other young Chechen men from the same martial arts club in the small northern town of Vadsø who traveled to fight for ISIS in Syria. The events led PST to raise the terror alert, indicating that attempted attacks during the coming year are "likely".

Police patrols were also increased in Finland's capital Helsinki.

Reactions

Domestic

On 9 April, the Swedish Prime Minister said the government intended to change immigration law to facilitate the removal of people whose applications to stay in Sweden have been rejected.

On 9 April, more than forty thousand people gathered on Sergels torg (Sergel's Square) in Stockholm to honor the victims. Many people visited the site of the attack, leaving flowers and candles for the victims on Sergels Torg and on Drottninggatan, resulting in what was described as a "sea of flowers". Flowers were also left at Götaplatsen in Sweden's second-biggest city Gothenburg.

After the attack, there were proposals in ''Aftonbladet'' - one of Sweden's biggest newspapers - that vehicles be banned from Stockholm city center so they cannot be used as weapons, citing the use of vehicles as terrorist weapons in Stockholm as well as Nice, Jerusalem, and London.

The department store Åhléns had planned to re-open two days after the attack, but received heavy criticism after saying they would be selling smoke-damaged clothing at reduced rates. Åhléns later chose to stay closed for one more day and not to sell any damaged clothing.

The Swedish far-right was accused of trying to profit from the attack, producing fake news and circulating fake quotations online. This included tweets and social media posts from officials of the Sweden Democrats, a right-wing nationalist party. A man with a name similar to that of the main suspect was falsely implicated on the website Avpixlat.

Following the attack, the social media website Facebook was criticized for not deleting images of badly wounded or dead victims. On 11 April, a Facebook spokesman said the website had begun deleting the images. Swedish authorities started cracking down on illegal immigrants in the country after the attack.

In April 2019, the municipality of Stockholm organised an event to place a wreath to commemorate the anniversary of the attack. Families of the victims were not invited and were banned from attending the event which the municipality said was "private".

International

The lights on the Eiffel Tower were switched off on the evening of the attack to mourn the deaths. Nice

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