Guest post by Peter Imanuelsen, more commonly known as PeterSweden
A young couple were arrested this Friday by Swedish police after being found in possession of a powerful bomb at a hotel in the Stockholm area.
Police were first called to the scene after having received a call about a woman being assaulted. However things took an unexpected turn as police found a bag containing the bomb inside the hotel room.
The newspaper Expressen reports that according to a source, the explosive device was a flash powder bomb, saying “If it had gone off, at least three nearby people would have been pulverized.”
According to the news site Document, the female suspect is 26 year old Elife Demir. She has previously worked as an intern for Aftonbladet, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers and in addition she has worked for several other news publications.
She has posted on her Facebook that she lives in the Norwegian city of Ålesund, but according to her Facebook page she has studied at Malmö university and Uppsala university in Sweden. The website Pettersons Blogg writes that she is of Kurdish origin, and she can be seen posing with the Kurdistan flag. Elife Demir has previously been fined for being in possession of cannabis.
The male suspect in this case has previously been convicted several times, including drug charges, illegally in possession of carrying a knife, and threatening police officers with a knife.
Both the male and female suspects are now arrested on suspicion of preparing acts of “serious public destruction”. In addition the man is also in suspicion of weapons offences, and the female for drug offences. The female, Elife Demir denies any responsibility.
Police are currently investigating to find possible motives, including investigating possible terrorist links. However the security services are not involved according to Nina Odermalm Schei, communication chief at the security services.
