Ideological motives ruled out on Swedish school shooting

Swedish police said yesterday there was no evidence of "ideological motives" behind a mass shooting at an adult education center in the Nordic country's deadliest gun attack which killed at least 11 people on Tuesday.

The suspected perpetrator, who was among the dead and was not known previously to the police, appeared to have acted alone, they said. He fired at police when they arrived at the school and then likely killed himself, officials said.

Many people were also wounded in the attack at the Risbergska school in the central Swedish city of Orebro, a town of more than 100,000 people, and were being treated in hospital - some were in serious condition.

Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after the lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out. Pegado teaches adult students to become kitchen staff, many of them immigrants seeking qualifications to help them find jobs in the Nordic country, while also learning Swedish.

Local media reported that the attacker was an unemployed man aged around 35, who had a hunting license.

Police said they did not see any general threat against schools in the country. Investigations inside the one-story building were still underway.

Reuters