HELSINKI: Finland observed a minute of silence on Sunday for the victims of a stabbing attack that left two people dead in what is being investigated as the country’s first-ever terror attack.
Another eight people were wounded in the stabbing spree on Friday in the southwestern port city of Turku. The suspect, an 18-year-old Moroccan asylum seeker, was interrogated on Sunday and is due to appear before a judge early on Monday to be remanded in custody, police said.
At the market square where the attack happened, several hundred people gathered to hold a minute of silence at 10am.
Among the crowd were emergency workers, city officials and police who formed a ring around a makeshift memorial of candles and flowers.
Also there was Hassan Zubier, a visiting British paramedic who was injured in the attack after coming to the aid of a woman who later died. He arrived directly from hospital, attending the ceremony in a wheelchair.
“I wanted to show my respect to the victims,” he told Swedish daily Aftonbladet before returning to hospital for further treatment. Similar ceremonies were held across the country.
Finnish police said that the attacker deliberately targeted women. His motive was not yet known.
All of the victims were women, including the dead, except for two men who tried to fend off the attacker. An Italian, a Swede and a Briton were among the injured.
The suspect was shot and wounded by police minutes after he began his rampage on Friday afternoon.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said it had interrogated the suspect on Sunday for the first time, but revealed no details of the outcome.
“We do not comment the contents at this point in time.” The suspect is in hospital with a gunshot wound to the thigh.
Police arrested four Moroccans linked to the suspect in a raid in the early hours of Saturday, but police said their involvement in the attack had “not yet been fully established.”
The four were cooperating with police in interrogations, investigators said.
Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2017
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