Liam Nebel, an 18-year-old student, was charged with murder on Sunday afternoon after a sword rampage at Brinell School in Fagersta left a 17-year-old girl dead and three other students injured.
The attack occurred on Friday, just days after classes had started for the new academic year. Fagersta is a small town with a population of 12,000, located 100 miles northwest of Stockholm in central Sweden.
Nebel had an access card to enter the school premises because he was a student at the institution, the headmaster told local radio. Local media reported that Nebel was allegedly dressed like Anton Lundin Pettersson, the sword-wielding attacker who killed a pupil and a teacher in a similar assault in Trollhättan in 2015.
Local police stated they did not know what the motive was for the attack, but added that they had no reason to believe any other suspects were involved.
Casualties and police response
The victim of the fatal attack was a 17-year-old girl, who was found dead inside the school building. Two teenage boys sustained severe injuries during the rampage, while a third injured student has since been discharged from the hospital, according to the Swedish news agency TT.
Police received the alarm and arrived at the school within 10 minutes. Officers rushed into the building and fired at the attacker, missing him, but managed to stop and detain him at the scene.
TikTok post and mass murderer tributes
Police are investigating a photograph of a sword posted to a TikTok account 20 minutes before the attack. The image appeared to have been taken in the bathrooms at the school, according to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
The TikTok account had posted scores of videos paying tribute to mass murderers, such as neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik, who massacred 77 people in Norway in 2011. "The investigators are looking into various online communities which might have egged on the suspect to carry out the attack," a police source told Reuters.
Eyewitness accounts from students
The school had just reopened after the school holidays, and for some students, the attack took place on their first day.
Brinell student Nellie described the scene after enduring a five-hour lockdown at the school alongside her mother, Agnes Strandberg. "First it was just a regular day really. But then...I saw a guy all covered in blood, at least down his back anyway. Then I saw the police and they flooded in," Nellie said.
Abdulrahem Salmo, a witness who was in his first week at the school, told Swedish broadcaster SVT: "He came behind my friend's back and stabbed him in the arm, and we saw he had blood all over his arm. He told us to ring the police. Some people did, then we ran from there because we were scared."
Official reaction
On Friday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the attack as a "serious incident."
"We do not know what lies behind the act, but we know that police are working very intensively," Kristersson said.
