Two dead, six wounded in knife attack in Finland
Tuomas Forsell
3 MIN READ
TURKU, Finland (Reuters) - A man with a knife killed two people and wounded six others in a stabbing rampage in a market square in the Finnish city of Turku on Friday, police said.
Police shot the suspected attacker in the leg and arrested him. They said they had yet to establish the identity of the man who was of foreign origin, or his motive.
A witness told Reuters she had seen a man stabbing a woman and other people sobbing at what they had seen after running away in terror.
Police warned people to stay away from the city and reinforced security nationwide, with increased patrols and more surveillance, in case more people were involved. People were allowed to return to the city center a few hours later.
"At this stage, there is only one suspect and we are investigating whether there are more people involved ... but it looks likely (he was alone)," Markus Laine from the National Bureau of Investigation said.
"For now we do not investigate this (as a terrorist attack) but the possibility has not been ruled out," he told a news conference.
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Finnish police say two dead, six hospitalized after stabbings
Police said they would hold the next news conference in Turku on Saturday at 1100 GMT.
People laid candles and flowers at the scene of the attack in the evening.
Laura Laine, who saw the stabbing from a nearby outdoor cafe, also returned to the square.
Candles at Turku Market Square for the victims of Friday's stabbings are pictured in Turku, Finland August 18, 2017. LEHTIKUVA/Vesa Moilanen via REUTERS
"First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I thought it's just kids having fun ... but then people started to move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a woman," she told Reuters.
"Then a person ran toward us shouting 'he has a knife', and everybody from the terrace ran inside."
"Next, a woman came in to the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying someone's neck has been slashed open."
Slideshow (16 Images)
The six wounded were taken to hospital, police said.
"The act is utterly deplorable and an exceptionally serious violent offense in the Finnish context – it is deeply shocking for us all," Prime Minister Juha Sipila said in a statement after holding a conference call with his government.
Finland is usually peaceful but the Security Intelligence Service raised the terrorism threat level in June to elevated from low, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans in Finland.
The government has grown more concerned about attacks, partly since an Uzbek man killed four people in neighboring Sweden in April by driving a hijacked truck into crowd in central Stockholm.
On Thursday, a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in Barcelona, Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: "It is with great concern that I have learned of the violent attacks in Turku, Finland. While details are still emerging, we strongly condemn this unprovoked attack which comes only 24 hours after the horror that unfolded in Spain."
Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl and Tuomas Forsell, additional reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos; Writing by Alister Doyle; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams
Re: Two dead, six wounded in knife attack in Finland
I don´t even know why here should to post news about every single terrorist acts (this one we really don´t know if it was just someone with mental problems or not). Does OP wants to give to us possibiity to condemn them - every time again and again.
From Occupied Palestine:
We have suffered too much for too long. We will not accept apartheid masked as peace. We will settle for no less than our freedom.
Telegraph News
Finland 'terror' attack: Briton stabbed four times 'trying to save' women targeted in attack which left two dead
Hassan Zubier, a paramedic born in Kent, was stabbed four times as he tried to save women in a terror attack in the Finnish city of Turku
Nicola Harley
19 AUGUST 2017 • 6:34PM
A British man was stabbed four times in the Finland terror attack as he tried to help save women from a knife-wielding attacker who killed two of them.
The attacker stabbed two Finnish women to death and injured eight more in a market place in the city of Turku, 90 miles west of the capital, Helsinki, on Friday, as British paramedic, Hassan Zubier, tried to save them.
Mr Zubier, 45, was stabbed four times as he tried to protect one of the victims who died in his arms.
Police shot and wounded the 18-year-old attacker in the leg and arrested him just minutes after the stabbing in the busy market square.
The police say the Moroccan man specifically targeted women and it was the intervention of Mr Zubier, from Dartford, and one other that helped to save lives before the suspect was apprehended.
Mr Zubier was repeatedly stabbed in the neck and chest as he tried to protect his girlfriend and others.
"We were strolling around the square when we suddenly heard someone screaming. I turned around and saw a guy stabbing a woman with a knife while she was on the ground," Mr Zubier told Swedish daily Expressen from the Turku hospital.
"I rushed to help her and tried to stop the blood flow.
Hassan Zubier, from Kent, battled to save the lives of a number of women attacked in the Finland terror attack.
"I tried to stop the violent bleeding from her throat. Then he stabs me with the knife again. The woman was so badly injured and she died in my arms."
Two Finnish citizens were killed in the attack and a British man, two Swedes and an Italian were injured.
The victims ranged in age from 15 to 67.
A girl plays a traditional Finnish instrument 'kantele' and singing a traditional lullaby at the site where one person was stabbed to death CREDIT: EPA/MARKKU OJALA
"We think that the attacker especially targeted women, and the men were wounded after coming to the defence of the women," superintendent Christa Granroth of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation.
"One man was injured trying to help a victim and one man tried to stop the attacker," Granroth said.
The British Embassy in Helsinki said: "We have been in touch with the British National and offered consular support."
Mr Zubier and his girlfriend were on holiday in Turku. They were planning to take a cruise ship back to Stockholm on Friday night.
Finnish police say the suspect, from Morocco, entered the country last year and was going through the asylum process.
Rescue personnel cordon the place where several people were stabbed, at Turku Market Square CREDIT: LEHTIKUVA/RONI LEHTI VIA REUTERS
"The act had been investigated as murder, but during the night we received additional information which indicates that the criminal offenses are now terrorist killings," police said in a statement.
The suspect's "identity is known to the police. He is an 18-year-old Moroccan citizen," it said.
The attacks on Thursday in Barcelona were also carried out by a Moroccan-born terror cell, which left 14 dead.
"There was a raid and we have now six suspects in custody, the main suspect and five others," detective superintendent Markus Laine of the National Bureau of Investigation said.
"We are investigating the role of these five other people but we are not sure yet if they had anything to do with [the attack]... We will interrogate them, after that we can tell you more. But they had been in contact with the main suspect," Mr Laine added.
President of Finland Sauli Niinist arrives for a prayer service for stabbing victims at the Cathedral in Turku on Friday CREDIT: VESA MOILANEN/LEHTIKUVA VIA AP
In June, Finland's intelligence and security agency Supo raised the country's terror threat level by a notch, from "low" to "elevated", the second notch on a four-tier scale.
It said at the time it saw an increased risk of an attack committed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The agency said it was keeping a particularly close eye on around 350 individuals, an increase of 80 percent since 2012.
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