Sweden: Police seek tenant as suspect in building explosion

Swedish police say they are seeking a man in connection with an explosion and fire at a large apartment building that injured 16 people, four of them seriously

Sweden Explosion (Adam Ihse)

Swedish police said Thursday they are seeking a man in connection with an explosion and fire at a large apartment building this week that injured 16 people, four of them seriously.

The man is wanted on suspicion of public destruction but not been located yet, police said. Authorities did not name him, but Swedish media reported that the suspect was a man in his 50s who had lived with his mother in the building in Goteborg, Sweden s second-largest city.

The property owner had been trying to evict the man and his mother from their apartment, according to daily newspaper Aftonbladet. The local Goteborg-Posten newspaper said an eviction was planned for Tuesday, the day the explosion occurred.

Aftonbladet said police had charged the man with several alleged crimes a week before the blast. The paper also reported that after he was was not allowed to see his mother at a nursing home due to pandemic restrictions, the suspect harassed several people, including the owner of the building.

The explosion rocked the building in central Goteborg early Tuesday. Ensuing blazes spread to several apartments, and hundreds of residents were evacuated. At least 140 apartments were damaged.

One of the four people seriously injured remained in intensive care Wednesday, Goteborg’s main hospital told Swedish broadcaster SVT

Swedish media had quickly had focused on the possibility that the explosion could be related to feuding gangs. Sweden has seen a rise in violence between organized criminal gangs.

Police and prosecutors said Thursday that “at present, there is no indication that the blast has links to gang crime.”