Moroccan knife attacker trial starts in Finland

HELSINKI – 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.

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.