Stockholm truck attack suspect admits to “terrorist crime,” lawyer says

STOCKHOLM -- The man suspected of using a truck to mow down a crowd of people on a busy Stockholm street admitted to committing “a terrorist crime,” his lawyer said on Tuesday, according to the Reuters news agency.

39-year-old Uzbek national Rakhmat Akilov’s councel, Johan Eriksson, told a custody hearing that Akilov “acknowledges the terrorist charge and agrees to be arrested.”

Eriksson was speaking to reporters outside the courthouse minutes before the court was scheduled to decide on a formal order by prosecutors to continue the detention of the 39-year-old Uzbek-born man.

Akilov allegedly drove a stolen beer truck into a crowd outside an upscale department store in central Stockholm on Friday afternoon. Four people died, and 15 others were injured.

Akilov’s application for permanent residency in Sweden had been rejected last year, after which, police said, he had gone underground. He was arrested in Marsta, a suburb north of Stockholm, several hours after the attack.