HELSINKI (AP) — A trial has opened in Finland in the case of a Moroccan asylum seeker and alleged Islamic State sympathizer charged with fatally stabbing two people and wounding eight others in August.
Injured victim Hassan Zubier from Sweden attends the court for the trial of Moroccan Abderrahman Bouanane accused of two murders and 8 murder attempts with terrorist intent, in Turku, Finland, on Monday April 9, 2018. Hassan Zubier got injured as he attempted to help a stabbing victim during a knife attack in Turku on August 18, 2017. (Antti Aimo-Koivisto/Lehtikuva via AP)
Abderrahman Bouanane was led handcuffed on Monday into a makeshift courtroom in a prison in Turku, the southwestern Finnish city where the Aug. 18 attack took place.
State Prosecutor Hannu Koistinen has charged Bouanane, born in 1994, with two counts of terror-related murder and eight counts of attempted murder with a terror-related motive, the first terror-related charges issued in Finland.
Police said in February that Bouanane identified strongly with IS and that the attack was motivated largely by hatred after heavy bombardments by the Western-led coalition in Syria last year.
Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Bouanane.
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