Stockholm terror suspect was caught 'trying to join ISIS before being sent BACK TO SWEDEN'
A TERRORIST who killed four people after ramming a truck into shoppers in Stockholm had tried to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State, an Uzbekistan security source said.
Terror attacker suspect Rakhmat Akilov before Stockholm shoppers were rammed by lorry
Stockholm terror suspect was caught 'trying to join ISIS before being sent BACK TO SWEDEN'The suspected killer Rakhmat Akilov, an ethnic Tajik from Uzbek, was influenced by a Tajik Islamic State cell while living in Sweden.
Police have since revealed the 39-year-old has been living in the Scandinavian country since at least 2014 – but a security source said he had tried to leave.
Akilov was detained at the Turkish-Syrian border in 2015 and deported back to Sweden, the insider said.
Most remarkably, in February this year Uzbekistan's authorities had put him on a wanted list for people suspected of religious extremism.
The horrific aftermath of the terror attack in Sweden
Yet he was living in Sweden before hijacking a beer truck and driving it over shoppers, killing four and injuring 15.
Swedish security police declined to comment on the information, citing the ongoing investigation.
Officers believe Akilov, whose asylum application failed and was wanted for deportation at the time of Friday's attack, hijacked a beer truck and drove it into a busy pedestrian street in the Swedish capital before crashing into a department store.
Swedish police confirm one of the Stockholm victims is British
Sweden attack victims include father Chris Bevington from Britain and Ebba Åkerlund, aged 11
Akilov has confessed to committing a terrorist crime, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
A judge has remanded him in custody for a month while investigations continue.
Swedish security services have said Akilov had figured in intelligence reports but they had not viewed him as a militant threat.
Sweden's state migration agency declined to comment on the Uzbekistan security source's remarks.
ISIS claimed the attack in the wake of the brutal killings.
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Mourners in Stockholm after shoppers were mown down by terror attacker
This week, Akilov reportedly said "I am a Muslim and a support ISIS" and bombing in Syria "needs to stop".
Lena Wahlberg, 69, from Sweden, Chris Bevington, 41, from Britain and Maïlys Dereymaeker, 31, from Belgium were killed in the attack, as well as 11-year-old schoolgirl Ebba Åkerlund.