Six people, including four children, were injured in the attack in a park in the city of Annecy in the Alps in eastern France. The suspected perpetrator was apprehended by police shortly afterwards.

According to information to SVT, this is a Syrian refugee in his 30s who has lived in Sweden.

According to the population register, the man has lived in Vingåker for a period but moved to Stockholm in 2014. In 2019, he returned to Sörmland and settled in Eskilstuna, where he married the same year.

Tough financially

A year ago, on June 8, 2022, he was sentenced in Eskilstuna District Court for welfare violations to a suspended sentence and a daily fine.

He was convicted of having applied for and received almost SEK 50,000 in unemployment benefit in 2019 and 2020, despite the fact that he also had student financial aid from CSN. The man stated that at the time he was having a tough time financially and had to sell his wife's jewelry to raise money.

According to the verdict, the man was living in orderly conditions at the time of the trial and had previously gone unpunished. The district court therefore chose a suspended sentence and a daily fine as punishment instead of imprisonment.

The man moved to western Sweden in the summer of last year.

"Part of our family"

He is now under arrest on suspicion of the stabbing in France.

"He was part of our family but has disappeared from Sweden," a relative of the suspected perpetrator told SVT Nyheter Väst.

What is behind the act is still unknown, but according to the prosecutor, there is currently no obvious terrorist motive.

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The stabbing took place in the French Alpine town of Annecy. Photo: Reuters