Finnish Investigators: Gunman Probably Chose Victims
VOA News 01 January 2010
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Finnish-Investigators-Gunman-Probably-Chose-Victims--80474762.html
Photo: AP
A woman lights a candle for the victims of a shooting at a shopping mall in Espoo, Finland, in front of an entrance of the mall, 01 Jan 2010
Gunman Kills 4 in Finnish Shopping Mall
Police in Finland say the gunman who killed five people Thursday before committing suicide apparently chose his victims.
Ibrahim Shkupolli, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, killed four people in a shopping mall in the town of Espoo. He also killed his former girlfriend in her apartment in the same town. He then apparently committed suicide in his own apartment.
Chief investigator of the National Bureau of Investigation Esa Gronlund told reporters Friday that Shkupolli did not appear to fire at random. All five of his victims were employed at the same Prisma grocery store in the town's Sello mall. It is not yet clear if Shkupolli knew the three men and a woman he shot at the shopping mall.
Police say his former girlfriend, a Finnish woman, had a restraining order against him because he had allegedly threatened to kill her.
Officials say the 43-year-old Albanian came to Finland in the 1990s, but could not obtain Finnish citizenship because of his criminal record, which includes illegal possession of a gun.
Finland has one of the world's highest rates of civilian gun ownership because of its long tradition of hunting.
But two deadly school shootings in 2007 and 2008 have prompted calls for tougher gun laws.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said in a statement Thursday the incident raises renewed questions about Finland's firearm laws.
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