A 15-year-old boy from Syria who arrived in Sweden as a refugee has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following a school shooting last week.
Authorities detained the boy on Saturday in relation to the attack, which occurred shortly after 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Trångsund School in Huddinge.
A gunshot was fired from inside a school restroom resulting in serious injury to one 15-year-old victim who was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery. The school’s principal later announced the surgery had been successful and the victim was not expected to have any long-lasting injuries.
“It happened in a secluded area and no other people were in the immediate vicinity”, said police spokesperson Helena Boström Thomas last week.
The shot victim had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance.
“My whole body is shaking, you don’t think that something like that could happen here. But it can happen anywhere these days,” one student at the school told Aftonbladet.
Swedish news outlet Samnytt reported that the suspect was born in Syria and arrived in Sweden during the peak of the migrant crisis in November 2015 accompanied by his parents and three siblings.
Corroborated by the Swedish Migration Agency, the parents later applied for Swedish citizenship in 2020, which was granted to the father in November last year, but not to the suspect’s mother. The suspect and his siblings are not Swedish citizens.
Samnytt further reported that the 15-year-old suspect had previously been interviewed by Sweden’s public broadcaster, with his family praised as being an example of successful integration into Western society.
The suspect was ordered to remain in pre-trial detention at a closed-door hearing at Stockholm District Court on Saturday afternoon.
“Extraordinary reasons are required when such a young person is detained, and the district court has judged that there are in this case. He is also under restrictions, i.e., limited communication with the outside world,” said emergency prosecutor Urszula Grabowska.
“I have assessed that there are currently exceptional reasons for detention despite the suspect’s young age,” added fellow prosecutor Kajsa Lindberg in a press release.