Published: Less than 20 min ago
Updated: Just now
Several people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted public destruction following the discovery of an explosive device in Kungsträdgården on Sunday, according to the police.
The arrests were made on Friday.
“Since last Sunday, we have worked intensively with a large resource and all the specialist skills that are available. The work has led to today’s arrests and the work continues,” says Erik Åkerlund, local police area manager, to the police’s website.
There are still no suspicions of terrorist crimes, the police write.
It was at 9.40pm on Sunday evening, in the middle of an ongoing cultural festival, that a bag containing the charge – which later turned out to be sharp – was found. The festival area was evacuated and cordoned off, and the object was later neutralized on site.
The police write that the object is undergoing analysis at the National Forensic Center (NFC) and the hope is that, among other things, they will find out “whether the dangerous object was functional”. When that analysis is completed is unclear.
The item was found outside a well-known pub, but Erik Åkerlund tells Dagens Nyheter that he does not want to comment on any possible connection to the pub in question.
– We cannot draw any such conclusions at the moment. We have a hypothesis that we consider to be the most likely, but we are still working broadly, says Åkerlund to the newspaper.