POLICE IN Stockholm fear an Irish tourist missing since St Patrick's weekend has drowned. They will carry out a third underwater search for his body tomorrow.
John Aherne (32), from Wicklow town, came to Sweden to spend the St Patrick's holiday with his friend Karl Lambert.
The two men went out with friends on Saturday night and had a few drinks together at a city centre bar. When Mr Aherne decided to go home, Mr Lambert stayed behind and gave his friend a set of spare keys. Mr Aherne is understood to have stopped off for a drink at a ground floor restaurant in the same building as Mr Lambert's apartment.
Leaving his coat on a chair and his phone on the bar, he went outside at one point for a cigarette and has not been seen since. Mr Aherne, an accountant who lived in Milltown, Dublin, was due to fly back to Ireland on March 17th.
On Thursday police widened their search to include waterways in the Norra Hammarby Hamnen district of Södermalm in south-central Stockholm. Police divers conducted an initial search of the area and returned again yesterday to conduct a five-hour dive.
"We will resume the search again in the same area later this week, most likely on Tuesday," Stockholm police spokesperson Lars Bröns told The Irish Times last night. "This is no longer about search and rescue, right now we are looking for a body."