TURKU, Finland: Finnish police said Saturday that after new information a stabbing spree that left two people dead was now considered a terrorist attack, identifying the suspect as an 18-year-old Moroccan citizen.
Police shot and wounded the knife-wielding suspect on Friday, arresting him minutes after an afternoon stabbing rampage at a busy market square in Turku in southwestern Finland.
"The incidents were initially investigated as murders, but in light of further information received during the night, the offences include now murders with terrorist intent and their attempts," police said in a statement.
The suspect's "identity is known to the police. He is an 18-year-old Moroccan citizen," police said, providing no other details about him.
The number of injured in the attack rose from six to eight and included an Italian national and two Swedes, police said. The other victims were Finns.
Five people were also arrested in a Turku apartment overnight.
"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 (NBI) told AFP.
"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," Laine said.
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 Daesh.
The agency said it was keeping a particularly close eye on around 350 individuals, an increase of 80 percent since 2012.
"Finland's profile within the radical Islamist propaganda has become stronger. Finland is considered as a Western country and a part of the anti-IS coalition, and propaganda is produced in the Finnish language and directed against Finland. The propaganda incites attacks in Finland," Supo wrote.
