Swedish police probing knife attack as possible ‘terror crime’

Swedish police said they were investigating a knife attack on Wednesday as a possible “terror crime” in which at least eight people were injured, and that the assailant had been arrested after being shot and wounded.

Some of the victims were in serious condition and the suspect, a man in his 20s, was hospitalised after his arrest, a police spokesman told a news conference. The man was previously known to police for minor crimes, the spokesman said.

The situation was under control and there were no indications that anyone else was involved in the attack in the town of Vetlanda, 340 km (210 miles) south of the capital Stockholm.

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven condemned the incident. “We confront such heinous acts with the combined force of our society,” he told TT news agency.

Police were alerted to the attack in Vetlanda, a town of around 13,000 people, around 3 p.m. and initially said it did not appear to be an act of terrorism.

In April 2017, a radical Islamist drove a truck into crowds of shoppers on a busy street in central Stockholm, killing five people before crashing into a department store. He was arrested and later sentenced to life in prison.