Swedish police: No comment on suicide bomber YouTube video claim

Jan 5, 2011, 12:48 GMT

Stockholm - Swedish police said Wednesday they had no comment on a claim made by the wife of a suicide bomber that it was she who had uploaded his final message to the file-sharing website YouTube after his death.

Mona Thwany said in an interview aired on British television late Tuesday that she had uploaded the video afterwards to explain to people why her husband had carried out the attack.

Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abday, a 28-year-old of Middle Eastern descent, was the only fatality in the December 11 attack near a busy shopping district in central Stockholm. Two bystanders were also injured.

Just minutes before the attack - the first in the Scandinavian country - he sent an email to police, the Swedish news agency TT and his wife.

The email contained statements in several languages in which he condemned Sweden's involvement in Afghanistan and a Swedish artist who drew a caricature of Islam's prophet Mohammed.

The appearance of his final video on the internet had fuelled speculation that he had an accomplice.

'People wanted to know what happened, and why he did it,' his wife Thwany said in Tuesday's interview.

'I felt it was painful to tell the story over and over again. So naively I thought people were interested in knowing the truth, why he did it. So I put that up on his YouTube channel,' she said.

Thwany said her three children had not been told of their father's death. She said she had not noticed a change in her husband's views and had not been aware of his plans.

She condemned terrorism and had not listened to the file until late in the evening on the day of the attack, she added.

The family had been living in Luton, near London, in recent years.

Security police spokeswoman Sara Kvarnstrom told the German Press Agency dpa that police were aware of the interview but had no further comment and were continuing to investigate the case.

Police have not yet been able to determine whether or not he acted alone.

Some 1,000 tips have been received so far. Analysis of finds made in connection with the case were expected to be completed at the earliest by mid-February, police said.

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