THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — One person was killed and another seriously wounded in a stabbing incident late Thursday in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, police said. Police arrested a suspect who was also injured and taken to a hospital for treatment.
Police spokesman Wessel Stolle said officers were investigating the stabbing near the landmark Erasmus Bridge. Stolle said that there was no immediate word on a motive, but “we look into all possible scenarios.”
Dutch daily De Telegraaf, citing witnesses at the scene, reported that a man attacked people at random with two knives while shouting Allahu Akbar, the Arabic phrase meaning God is great.
Stolle said police at the scene also had heard that the man shouted the phrase, and that "it’s part of the investigation.”
A sports instructor, Reniël Renato David Litecia, said he hit the attacker with two sticks after seeing him attack somebody and managed to take the knives and throw them away.
He said he initially thought it was a fight, "but when I started running in that direction I saw that it wasn’t a fight. It was a man with two long knives who was stabbing another young guy and when I started shouting he turned around and started approaching everyone who was around him.”
The identity of the victims and suspect were not immediately clear. Further details were not immediately available.
The Associated Press
