Swedish police identify 17-year-old girl as victim in school sword attack

Brinell School’s principal says the 18-year-old suspected of carrying out Friday’s deadly sword attack was a student there.

Swedish police have identified the victim of Friday’s deadly sword attack at a Fagersta high school as a 17-year-old girl, as her classmates and the country’s political leaders gather to mourn her.

“The person killed in this incident is a young 17-year-old female. Her family has been informed,” police said on Saturday, declining to release further details.

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Local newspaper Fagersta-Posten reported that her parents confirmed the death.

The Brinell School’s principal told local media the 18-year-old suspect was a student there. He entered the building on Friday afternoon, just days after classes resumed from summer break, and was arrested at the scene of the attack.

Two boys, aged 12 and 17, were seriously wounded in the attack, one requiring emergency surgery. A third victim was treated for light injuries and has since gone home.

By Saturday morning, the scene outside Brinell had transformed into a memorial of candles, flowers and a steady stream of visitors, including Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson, who travelled to Fagersta to pay their respects.

Political parties across the country paused campaigning ahead of September’s election.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Social Democratic Party leader Magdalena Andersson visit the makeshift memorial, a day after a sword attack in Fagersta, Sweden [Magnus Lejhall/EPA]

An unnamed police source told the Reuters news agency that investigators are looking into whether the suspect had ties to online communities that promote school violence.

Police are examining a TikTok account, taken down hours after the attack, that posted an image of a sword 20 minutes before it began and had previously featured videos referencing past school attacks in Sweden and Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik.

“The investigators are looking into various online communities which might have egged on the suspect to carry out the attack,” the Reuters source said.

Prosecutors have ordered the person held on suspicion of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.

Police say they have carried out about 80 interviews so far, with plans to question nearly all of the school’s roughly 450 staff members and students.

The attack adds to a grim pattern. Sweden endured its deadliest school shooting last year, when a gunman killed 10 people in Orebro, and a 2015 sword attack in Trollhattan that killed three people in what authorities called a racially motivated hate crime.