STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- A Swedish court Thursday (June 7) sentenced a rejected Uzbek asylum seeker to life in prison for terrorism after he mowed down pedestrians with a stolen truck in central Stockholm on April 7, 2017, killing five people.
The Stockholm district court convicted Rakhmat Akilov, 40, of "terrorist crimes" for five murders and 119 attempted murders in the assault on one of Stockholm's busiest shopping streets.
Arrested hours after the slayings, Akilov told the court that he had sworn allegiance to the "Islamic State" (IS) and that the group had given him the green light on encrypted chat sites to carry out a suicide attack. However, IS never claimed responsibility.
Those killed in the attack included three Swedes, including a girl who would have turned 12 on Thursday, as well as a 41-year-old British man and a 31-year-old Belgian woman. Ten more were injured.
Akilov expressed no remorse during his almost three-month trial.
He will be expelled after serving a life term, which averages 16 years in Sweden, the court added.
