Ukrainian man, 30, is identified as suspect in Amsterdam mass stabbing

A man suspected of stabbing five people in 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 people at random, using multiple knives, during a rampage near the busy Dam Square.

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 in to an Amsterdam hotel on Wednesday, will be brought before a judge on April 1 to decide on his further detention.

Officers were called just before 3.30 pm local time and found five injured people in and around Sint Nicolaasstraat in the centre of the city.

The victims of the attack were a 67-year-old woman and a 69-year-old man from the US, a 26-year-old man of Polish nationality, a 73-year-old woman from Belgium and a 19-year-old woman from Amsterdam.

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.

Police on Saturday were still unclear about the motive for the stabbing and said investigations were ongoing.

Meanwhile, Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema, has given a “hero medal” to a British tourist who tackled the suspect in a mass stabbing to the ground and restrained him until police arrived.

Footage, which has over six million views on X, shows a man kneeling on top of the suspect and threatening to punch him, as shoppers casually pass by.

Ms Halsema told Amsterdam news channel AT5: "He is a very modest British man. He has no desire to become famous. He is now mainly concerned with the victims, he feels responsible for them."

She said the British man made a split second decision “for which there should be a lot of appreciation.”

“The tourist was walking on Nieuwendijk and heard a commotion”, she added.