A story getting little coverage — three men, from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, were charged in Sweden for plotting to commit a terrorist crime and for funding the Islamic State. Three other men were charged with funding the Islamic State they were also from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
More from Reuters:
“Three (of the suspects) acquired and stored large quantities of chemicals and other equipment in order to, among other things, kill and harm other people. If the terrorist crime had been carried out, it could have seriously hurt Sweden,” the Stockholm prosecutor’s office said in a statement.It said the six men were from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, both mainly Muslim, former Soviet republics.Five are in Swedish custody while the sixth man was freed pending trial; all have denied wrongdoing, the statement said.Thomas Olson, lawyer for one of the accused, told Swedish Radio his client had bought a large amount of chemicals from a bankrupt firm in order to try to sell it on, without success.“My client left very detailed explanations as to why he was in possession of these chemicals, explanations that have been confirmed by all outsiders,” Olson said.
According to The Local Sweden, at least one of the suspects was in contact the radical Muslim who committed the Stockholm truck attack last year.
Five of the six have been in custody since a police raid in Strömsund, 600 kilometres (375 miles) north of Stockholm, in late April. The sixth man is not in custody.During the April raid, neighbours told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper they saw police removing about 15 large plastic containers from a shed on an empty property.According to Dagens Nyheter, at least one of the suspects had been in contact with Rakhmat Akilov, a radicalized Uzbek asylum seeker who mowed down pedestrians in Stockholm with a stolen truck in April 2017, killing five people. Akilov was sentenced to life in prison in June 2018.
From the truck terrorist attack last year:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY