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STOCKHOLM SUICIDE BOMBING

STOCKHOLM

UK suspect ‘financier’ behind Stockholm bomb

The man who is being held in Glasgow on suspicion of being an accomplice in a suicide bombing in Stockholm in December is thought to have been the financier behind the failed attack, according to the Glasgow Herald daily.

UK suspect 'financier' behind Stockholm bomb

Police were on Thursday granted more time to question the 30-year-old man of Kuwaiti origin over his suspected links to the attack which killed the suicide bomber, Taimour Abdulwahab, and injured two others in the Swedish capital.

The man was arrested in a pre-dawn raid in the Whiteich area of Glasgow on Tuesday and is being held at Govan police station.

His identity remains unconfirmed with reports suggesting that he was nursing student at North Glasgow College rejected by the college, the newspaper reported.

The Swedish Security Service and the UK’s MI5 are reported to be assisting the police with their enquiries. According to UK anti-terror laws the police are able to detain the man for questioning without charge for 14 days.

Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish citizen who lived in the British town of Luton with his wife and three children, narrowly missed wreaking carnage among Christmas shoppers when he blew himself up next to Stockholm’s busiest pedestrian street on December 11th.

He was carrying a cocktail of explosives and is believed to have mistakenly set off a small explosion that killed him before he could carry out what appears to have been a mission to kill “as many people as possible,” a Swedish prosecutor said days after the attack.

An Islamist website, Shumukh al-Islam, posted a purported will by Abdulwahab which said he was fulfilling a threat by Al-Qaeda in Iraq to attack Sweden.

Shortly before the explosions, Säpo and the TT news agency received an email with audio files in which Abdulwahab is heard telling “all hidden mujahedeen in Europe, and especially in Sweden, it is now the time to fight back.”

The attack was the first suicide bombing on Swedish soil.

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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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