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STOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING

STOCKHOLM

‘Stockholm bomber was alone’: Swedish police

Swedish police have confirmed their view that the suicide bomber who blew himself up in central Stockholm in December was alone, while Scottish police continued to search for further UK-based suspects.

'Stockholm bomber was alone': Swedish police

According to the Swedish prosecutor there is no indication that the suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab had any accomplices in place in Stockholm at the terrorist attack in December.

“Our judgement is that he was alone then,” deputy chief prosecutor Agneta Hilding Qvarnström said on Wednesday.

Qvarnström referred any questions regarding the recent arrest of an alleged accomplice in the plot, which left the bomber dead and two people injured, to the Scottish police. She was furthermore unwilling to confirm whether any measures have been undertaken by the Swedish authorities.

“But then only a day has passed since his arrest. For a journalist, one day may be oceans of time, but for us it is only a short period,” she said.

Scottish police remain unwilling to divulge any further details on the case a day after a 30-year-old man was arrested in a suburb of Glasgow in western Scotland.

According to the Glasgow Herald newspaper the British security service MI5 was involved in the arrest, but the Scottish police have decline to confirm the report with all inquiries referred to the local police in Strathclyde.

According to the arrested man’s neighbours in the Whiteinch area of Glasgow, he was from Kuwait and studying to be a nurse at a college in Glasgow, the newspaper reported.

Scottish police have meanwhile not ruled out that their may be further suspects involved in the case and are continuing their investigation near the man’s home.

Mohammad Shafi Kaus, a spokesperson at Glasgow’s Islamic Centre confirmed to the TT news agency that the 30-year-old suspect is not known to them.

“We do not know the man’s name. But try not to link the case to our mosque,” he warned, politely but firmly.

From the meeting room at the Islamic Center next to the Clyde river in central Glasgow, he described how the approximately 35,000 strong Muslim population in the city is well integrated into Scottish society.

“Our children are born here, they have received their education here,” he said, pointing out that two of his children are doctors.

That some attacks have been carried out by Muslim perpetrators born in Britain, Kaus put down to the fact that there exist sub-cultures within society and underlined that people do not generally link acts of terrorism committed by a Muslim with Islam as a religion.

Sweden’s prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was not informed of the operation to arrest the 30-year-old suspect prior to the information becoming public.

“There has been an arrest and we don’t know all the details about this. We shall have to follow what the Scottish judicial system concludes,” Reinfeldt said.

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STOCKHOLM

Stockholm Pride is a little different this year: here’s what you need to know 

This week marks the beginning of Pride festivities in the Swedish capital. The tickets sold out immediately, for the partly in-person, partly digital events. 

Pride parade 2019
There won't be a Pride parade like the one in 2019 on the streets of Stockholm this year. Photo: Stina Stjernkvist/TT

You might have noticed rainbow flags popping up on major buildings in Stockholm, and on buses and trams. Sweden has more Pride festivals per capita than any other country and is the largest Pride celebration in the Nordic region, but the Stockholm event is by far the biggest.  

The Pride Parade, which usually attracts around 50,000 participants in a normal year, will be broadcast digitally from Södra Teatern on August 7th on Stockholm Pride’s website and social media. The two-hour broadcast will be led by tenor and debater Rickard Söderberg.

The two major venues of the festival are Pride House, located this year at the Clarion Hotel Stockholm at Skanstull in Södermalm, and Pride Stage, which is at Södra Teatern near Slussen.

“We are super happy with the layout and think it feels good for us as an organisation to slowly return to normal. There are so many who have longed for it,” chairperson of Stockholm Pride, Vix Herjeryd, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

Tickets are required for all indoor events at Södra Teatern to limit the number of people indoors according to pandemic restrictions. But the entire stage programme will also be streamed on a big screen open air on Mosebacketerassen, which doesn’t require a ticket.  

You can read more about this year’s Pride programme on the Stockholm Pride website (in Swedish). 

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