Finnish police said on Saturday (August 19) that an 18-year-old Moroccan man arrested after knife attacks that killed two people in the city of Turku appeared to have specifically targeted women and that the spree was being treated as terrorism-related.
The suspect arrested on Friday (August 18) after being shot in the leg by police had arrived in Finland last year, police said, adding they later arrested four other Moroccan men over possible links to him.
Both of those killed in the attack were women, as well as six of the eight wounded, chief detective Crista Granworth of the National Bureau of Investigation told a news conference. The two who died were Finns and an Italian and two Swedish citizens were among the injured.
While the identity of the victims has not been disclosed by authorities, police said the attacker appeared to have targeted women during the stabbing spree in downtown Turku, a city of just under 200,000 people in southwest Finland.
Flags were at half mast on Saturday across Finland, whose Security Intelligence Service (SIS) raised the terrorism threat level in June to ‘elevated’ from ‘low’, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans.
Many residents of the Finnish town laid flowers and lit candles at the site of the attack to pay their respects.