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Gothenburg apartment blast suspect found dead

Prosecutors have said that the man suspected as being behind a detonation in Gothenburg last week has been found dead on Wednesday after an apparent suicide.

Police by a Gothenburg pier
Police close to where the suspect's body was found in the water. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

Named as Mark Lorentzon by Swedish media, the man was suspected of being behind the pre-dawn blast last Tuesday that injured 16 people at the building where he lived.

City workers pulled a body out of a central Gothenburg waterway early Wednesday that “was identified as that of the man sought by police and prosecutors… after the explosion in a building,” prosecutors said in a statement.

They added that suicide was the most plausible cause of death. The man was the subject of an international arrest warrant issued earlier this week.

The suspect, who had been due to be evicted from the building on the day of the explosion, had vanished without a trace.

The blast, which sparked a major fire, landed 16 people in hospital including four with serious injuries, and residents of 140 apartments were evacuated.

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POLITICS

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Green Party and Left Party have managed to oust the right-wing Moderates from power in Gothenburg, despite failing to strike a coalition deal with the Centre Party.

Red-green coalition takes power in Gothenburg

The Social Democrats, Left Party and Green Party will now take over the municipality with Jonas Attenius, group leader for the Social Democrats in the city, becoming the new mayor.

“We three parties are ready to together take responsibility for leading Gothenburg,” Attenius wrote to TT. “I am looking forward immensely to leading Gothenburg in the coming years.” 

The three parties will lead a minority government, with 40 out of 81 mandates, meaning it will dependent on mandates from the Centre Party to pass proposals. 

The three parties had hoped to bring the Centre Party into the coalition, but talks fell apart on Monday,  October 24th. 

“We our going into opposition, but our goal is to be an independent, liberal force, which can negotiate both to the left and to the right,” the party’s group leader in Gothenburg, Emmyly Bönfors told the Göteborgs-Posten newspaper. 

The end of talks in Gothenburg leave the Social Democrats leading coalition governments in all three of Sweden’s major cities, with Karin Wanngård appointed Mayor of Stockholm on October 17th. 

The Social Democrats had unbroken control in Malmö since 1994, after they regained power from the Moderates, who controlled the city from 1991-1994, and also from 1985-1988. 

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