Sixteen-year-old detained after three people killed in Sweden shooting

A 16-year-old has been detained on suspicion of shooting and killing three people in Sweden, prosecutors have said.

A murder investigation was launched following the incident in the city of Uppsala on Tuesday.

The teenager is one of several people being interrogated as part of the investigation, Swedish police said.

The force added that the shooting took place at a hair salon and they believe it to have been an "isolated event".

Court documents, heavily redacted due to the suspect's young age, showed a person had been arrested on Wednesday, just after midnight.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the 16-year old is being held on the highest level of suspicion in the country's legal system.

"An intensive investigation is under way. We are now gathering information and the police are conducting door-to-door inquiries and interviewing witnesses," the authority said in a statement.

"In addition, mobile phones and other material that has been seized are being analysed."

Police told a news conference that it was too early to say if the shooting was gang related, but it was one of the theories they were pursuing "particularly intensively".

The force also said they do not believe the shooting was linked to the extensive celebrations for Walpurgis night, a pagan festival marking the arrival of spring.

Witnesses earlier told local media they heard five shots and saw people in the area running to take cover.

Police said on Tuesday it was investigating the shooting as a homicide and that it had no information about whether it was a terror or hate crime-related incident at that point.

A spokesperson for the force said it had information someone had left the scene on an electric scooter - it was unclear whether they were a suspect, witness or otherwise.

Electric scooters have been used several times as a mode of transport after gang shootings in the country.

Uppsala, a city around 70km (43 miles) north of the capital Stockholm, has seen a number of gang-related shootings in the past decade, but usually outside the city centre.

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In a statement on Tuesday, Swedish justice minister Gunnar Strommer said: "A brutal act of violence has occurred in central Uppsala... this is at the same time as the whole of Uppsala has begun Walpurgis Night.

"What has happened is extremely serious."

In February, 10 people were killed in the city of Orebro in the country's deadliest ever mass shooting after a 35-year-old opened fire in an adult learning centre.

Sweden's right-wing government came to power in 2022, promising to tackle gang-related violence.

It has tightened laws and given more powers to police, and after the Orebro shooting, it vowed to tighten gun laws as well.

(c) Sky News 2025: Sixteen-year-old detained after three people killed in Sweden shooting