Romania probes terror motive for rampage that injured 10

BUCHAREST, Romania – Romanian prosecutors are considering terror charges for a 20-year-old man who allegedly injured 10 people with a knife and car, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism spokeswoman Mihaela Porime told The Associated Press that prosecutors are investigating Marius Parfenie for alleged acts of terrorism.

Parfenie previously was under investigation for attempted murder.

He is accused of stabbing another man and then driving a car into people on a road and at a shopping mall on Sunday. Parfenie was stopped after he allegedly rammed the doors of the mall in the city of Braila.

None of the victims, who included two children ages 11 and 13, suffered life-threatening injuries.

Witness video from the mall purported to show the suspect lying on the ground saying: “Blood should run in this country.”

Romanian TV channel Digi24 broadcast security camera footage of the car that slammed into the mall veering off a road and striking pedestrians.

Braila court spokeswoman Georgiana Streche told the AP that prosecutors found notes that suggest Parfenie planned the attack. He didn’t express remorse when he appeared in court, she said.

Parfenie, who had worked as a butcher in Sweden, intended to “suppress the lives of an undetermined number of people with the aim of changing something in Romania’s social order,” Streche said.