A man said to be in his forties has been arrested in connection to the stabbing of a woman in broad daylight in an underpass in the city of Linköping earlier this week.
The attack took place on Thursday morning and saw the 44-year-old Swedish woman stabbed multiple times in the area of the city’s main railway station. She was badly injured in the attack and died of her injuries after being taken to a local hospital.
According to a report from the newspaper Aftonbladet, a man in his forties was arrested in connection with the with the attack and is now being charged with murder.
As is customary in Swedish media, few details of the suspect have been released by the mainstream media, however news website Nyheter Idag has claimed that tax records they have seen indicate that the man is foreign and comes from the Balkan region, saying that the documents state he is a citizen of the former country of Serbia and Montenegro, which was split up in 2006.
The website has also alleged that the suspect in the case has several prior criminal convictions, including theft, attempted violence, violence against an official and several traffic-related offences.
Malin Axelsson, Deputy Chief Prosecutor at the Prosecutor’s Office in Linköping, commented on the ongoing investigation saying: “We have held interrogations, collected evidence from the crime scene such as seizures and traces. We are in the process of obtaining surveillance footage and are in the process of analysing them.”
Pierre Frennesson, the lawyer for the suspect in the case, said that his client has denied any wrongdoing and he has given a statement to police.
According to Aftonbladet, the victim and the man were previously married and but were separated. The victim is said to have felt threatened by her former husband had had lived in a sheltered accommodation since 2015 and had claimed in court that the man had violently abused her.
The attack on the woman comes just over month since an Afghan migrant went on a stabbing rampage in broad daylight in the town of Vetlanda, injuring eight people, three of which were in life-threatening condition.