A man suspected of stabbing five people in central Amsterdam on Thursday is a 30-year old Ukrainian national from the eastern Donetsk region, local police said on Saturday.
The man is suspected of having wounded five people at random, using multiple knives, during a stabbing rampage near the busy Dam Square on Thursday afternoon.
He was arrested quickly after the incident with the help of bystanders, sustaining an injury to his leg.
The man, who police said had checked into an Amsterdam hotel on Wednesday, will be brought before a judge on 1 April to decide on his further detention.
Police on Saturday were still unclear about the motive for the stabbings and said investigations were ongoing.
The victims were a 26-year-old man from Poland, a 73-year-old Belgian woman, a 19-year-old woman from Amsterdam and a 67-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man, both American nationals.
The Polish man had been released from hospital by Friday, while the other victims were still in hospital but in a stable condition, police said.
Meanwhile The Mayor of Amsterdam has given a “hero’s medal” to an English tourist who chased a knifeman through busy alleys and pinned him to the ground, bringing an end to his rampage.
Footage shows a man, in casual clothes, kneeling on top of the suspect and threatening to punch him as he waits for police while shoppers file past him near Dam Square.
In a message on Instagram, Mayor Femke Halsema thanked him for his heroic actions.
He received a hero’s badge in her official residence, she told reporters.
“He is a very modest British man,” Ms Halsema told Amsterdam news channel AT5. “He has no desire to become famous. He is now mainly concerned with the victims, he feels responsible for them.”
She said the man made a decision in “a split second for which there should be a lot of appreciation”.
