A man being hunted by Swedish police investigating an explosion that injured 16 people has been found dead, the public prosecutor said.
The suspect’s body was pulled from the harbour in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, a week after the incident that shocked the country.
"The body has been identified as the man who was wanted by police and the Prosecution Authority the past week following the explosion in a residential building in Annedal," it said.
Officers are not treating the man’s death as suspicious.
The man’s name has not been released by Swedish authorities. Local media reported that the man, who was born in Poland, was in his 50s and was living in the block of flats with his mother.
Senior police officer Anders Borjesson said that law enforcement “had hoped that he would be alive” when they found him.
He said he is mindful of public concern in light of the explosion, which occurred at a block of flats in the Annedal area of central Gothenburg on September 28.
Investigators will now continue with their work with the aim of piecing together the events leading up to the blast and finding out the reasons why it was carried out, he said.
An anonymous neighbour told Swedish radio that the suspect had been hoarding a “lot of chemicals, either in the apartment or in the basement, given the smell”.
On Monday he was arrested in his absence on suspicion of causing gross public destruction and attempted murder.
The following day, Sweden issued an international arrest warrant for his capture.
Since the blast, police have been investigating whether an explosive device was placed at the apartment block. Early on in the investigation, officers said the blast was unlikely to have been caused by a natural source.
Spokesman Thomas Fuxborg said: “We suspect that someone might have placed something that exploded. That is the word we got when the alarm was given.”
Sixteen people were injured, four seriously, in the blast and subsequent fires it caused in flats.
More than 100 people were removed from the multi-storey building after the explosion.
Some residents used sheets tied together to lower themselves from balconies. At least one person is reported to have fallen from an upstairs apartment.
