An 18-year-old Moroccan man suspected of killing two women and wounding eight other people in a knife attack in Finland has been named by a court as Abderrahman Mechkah.

The stabbing is being investigated as the country’s first terror attack. The crimes are being treated as murder and attempted murder with terrorist intent.

Police have requested that Mechkah, who is in hospital, be detained during preliminary investigations. They said he may appear in court on Tuesday via video link from hospital.

The suspect arrived in Finland in 2016 and was an asylum seeker, police said. He was shot in the leg and arrested shortly after the attack on Friday.

The two people killed were Finnish; a British man, two Swedes and one Italian were among those injured in the attack in Turku, on the Baltic coast, 90 miles (145km) west of Helsinki.

The assailant appeared to have targeted women, police have said. Both of those killed were women, as were six of the eight wounded, including one who was reported to have been with her baby.

The motive for the attack is unclear. However, the Finnish intelligence agency Supo said Turku police had received a tip early this year that Mechkah “appeared … to have been radicalised and showed interest in extremist ideologies”.

The tip, which was forwarded to Supo, “contained no information about any threat of an attack”.

Four other Moroccan nationals have been arrested.

The British man injured in the attack was stabbed repeatedly while he helped other victims. Hassan Zubier, 45, a paramedic who was born in Dartford, Kent, played down suggestions he was a hero, insisting he had merely been following his training.

Finland raised its emergency readiness level after the attack, increasing security at airports and train stations and putting more officers on the streets.

Supo said authorities had received more than 1,000 tips in recent years similar to the one concerning Mechkah.

“Our aim is to investigate all tips, but in order to go through all of them we have to prioritise heavily. Those tips that contain information about a concrete threat must be prioritised,” it said.

In June, Supo raised Finland’s terror threat level by a notch, from “low” to “elevated”.

It said at the time that it saw increased risk of attack by Islamic State militants, noting that foreign fighters from Finland had “gained significant positions within IS in particular and have an extensive network of relations in the organisation”.

The agency reiterated on Monday that it was closely watching around 350 individuals, an increase of 80% since 2012.

A minute’s silence was held across Finland on Sunday in honour of the victims.

Another minute’s silence, organised by Christian and Muslim associations, was to be held in Helsinki on Monday.