Police have arrested a 30-year-old man in Glasgow in connection with last year’s Stockholm suicide bombing. The foreign national was detained on suspicion of aiding terrorists in Sweden after an early morning raid in the Whiteinch area.
In December last year Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, a 28-year-old Iraqi who was studying at the University of Bedfordshire, blew himself up and injured two people in his botched attack in Stockholm. The hit was said to be the first suicide bombing in the country.
Strathclyde Police confirmed that they had been working on the case with the Swedish authorities for the past month, along with the Metropolitan Police and Bedfordshire Police.
The Swedish security service, Sakerhetspolisen, reportedly confirmed that the suspect, who has not been named, might be connected to the terrorist attack in Stockholm but refused to add further details. The service said investigations by Strathclyde Police “show that there could be a connection between the person now arrested and the terrorist attack in central Stockholm on 11 December 2010, something the continuing investigation in Scotland will clarify”.
Officers from Strathclyde arrested the man under the Terrorism Act just after 6am and took him to Helen Street police station in Glasgow. Officers also searched two other properties in the city.
Advertisement
Chief Superintendent Ruaraidh Nicolson said today’s arrest was part of an ongoing investigation which was “intelligence led”.
He said: “It’s very early in the investigation. It’s been ongoing for just over the last month or so. We want to reassure the public we’ve no evidence whatsoever that there is a threat to Scotland.”
He said the investigation had thrown up “absolutely no evidence” that there was a terrorist cell working in Scotland.
He declined to detail the nationality of the man arrested.
Whiteinch is a traditional working-class area in the northwest of Scotland’s largest city. Today, the talk of the community was not the Terrorism Act arrest but rather a murder was committed yesterday afternoon.
Advertisement
Locals knew little about the dawn raid. One staff member at Whiteinch community centre said: “It’s very strange. I grew up here and this is the first inkling we have had that we have had anything like this going on.”
Kenneth McLean, a local councillor, said: “I represent the ward and live in the ward and if that activity is going on in our midst it is worrying. I’m as surprised as anyone. I’ve never heard of anything like this. In some areas you might get extremists but there is nothing like that at all.
“It’s a fairly traditional working-class area with some social housing and some larger properties. It is quite an active community. There is usually some youth disorder but that’s about as high a level [of crime] as you get.
“But these people have to live somewhere and he might have chosen this area because you would not imagine it.”