Finnish police doubt identity of main suspect in Turku stabbings. Two others arrested
Finnish police are uncertain whether they have the real identity of the main suspect detained on suspicion of killing two people in a stabbing last week, the lead investigator into Finland’s first suspected Islamist militant attack said on Wednesday.
UPDATE: Finnish police said on Wednesday they had arrested two more suspects in connection with last week’s knife attack that killed two and wounded eight in the city of Turku.
The arrested men had told Finnish authorities they were from Algeria and Swedish ones they were Moroccan, police said.
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Police have previously detained the main suspect, a Moroccan asylum seeker and three other men in connection with the killings, which they suspected of having had a terrorist motive.
Eight other people were wounded in the knife attack in the south-western coastal city of Turku on Aug. 18, which occurred a day after a van drove into crowds in Barcelona, Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in Spain.
Finnish police have detained four men in connection with the Turku killings and an international arrest warrant has been issued for a fifth.
The main suspect who is in custody has been named as 18-year-old Moroccan Abderrahman Mechkah, who on Tuesday told a court he was responsible for the attack.
But Detective Superintendent Markus Laine of the National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters it was possible this was a false identity.
“We have reasons to suspect that he has given wrong information to authorities when coming to the country,” Laine said.
The man identified as Mechkah arrived in Finland in 2016 and he had earlier spent time in Germany, according to authorities.
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“We can’t comment yet on his motives… he has not been willing to answer all questions,” Laine said.
In Spain, police said all members of a 12-man cell they believe to have been responsible for the Barcelona attack had been either killed or arrested in the days after.
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