11-year-old terror attack victim’s memorial unveiling disrupted by Palestine protester

A pro-Palestine protester has disrupted the unveiling of a memorial to people killed in a terror attack in Stockholm, shouting over the father of an 11-year-old victim as a journalist tried to interview him.

Stefan Åkerlund was being interviewed for the Efter Fem news programme next to the new monument commemorating the eighth anniversary of the truck-ramming attack in 2017, which killed five people including his daughter Ebba.

In a video posted to X, a man could be seen loitering in the background with a large Palestinian flag. When Åkerlund tried to speak the man shouted “free, free Palestine, Palestine will be free”. Åkerlund was visibly distressed and had to compose himself before continuing the interview.

The father of a child killed during the Stockholm terror attack in April 2017
was interviewed yesterday at the unveiling of the monument commemorating the attack - and got interrupted by pro-Palestine activists. https://t.co/bE7fsVkZ6W

— Nathalie Rothschild (@n_rothschild) April 8, 2025

The attack was carried out by Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek asylum seeker who had been denied residency in Sweden. He hijacked a lorry and rammed into crowds on Drottninggatan, a major car-free shopping street that was thronged with pedestrians, before crashing into a department store.

Akilov, who was hiding from the police who wanted to deport him, had liked a page on Facebook called “Friends of Libya and Syria", which said it aimed to expose "terrorism of the imperialistic financial capitals" of the US, British and Arab "dictatorships".

His page also featured at least two propaganda videos linked to IS, one reportedly showing the aftermath of the Boston bombing.

Åkerland’s parents organised a social media campaign after she went missing, but the police soon told the family she was killed. At the time, her parents spoke of their “despair and pain” after discovering their child was killed as she was walking home from school.

One of her schoolteachers, Maija Moller Grimakova, said: "There is something special about her, there's so much life in her, and then suddenly she was not here. It's incredibly sad.”

The other victims were 41-year-old British Spotify executive Chris Bevington, 31-year-old Belgian psychologist Maïlys Dereymaeker, 66-year-old local politician Marie Kide, and 69-year-old Swede Lena Wahlberg. Another 15 people were seriously injured.

A new memorial for the victims of the 2017 Stockholm truck attack. (Magnus Lejhall/TT/Sweden Herald)[Missing Credit]

The monument, called Fredad plats / Sanctuary, was installed on Monday at Sergels Torg, close to Drottninggatan. Commissioned by the City of Stockholm and designed by Ann-Sofi Sidén and Mats Fahlander, the memorial depicts a bronze blanket with lines of poetry engraved into its seams.

Describing the “unmonumental” artwork in the Sweden Herald, Fahlander said: “When such an accident happens, it happens quickly and suddenly everything has changed. We have translated the instantaneous into a blanket, which probably everyone has a relationship with.”

Åkerland posted a photograph of a plaque from the bronze memorial to his Instagram – a page which is dedicated to his daughter’s memory - with the caption: “God I miss you beloved lovely Ebba.”

He set up The Swedish Hearts Foundation, in memory of Ebba, which hands out scholarships and awards for school children who go the extra mile to support their classmates’ mental health and “make others feel better”.