HELSINKI: A Scandinavian man with a background in significantly- proper extremism is suspected of stabbing and seriously wounding a 12- year- ancient in Finland, authorities said Friday.
The motive of the attack was under investigation, but both of the children were Finnish nationals of foreign background, the National Bureau of Investigation ( NBI ) said.
The 33- yr- ancient suspect stabbed a 12- year- old many times in a shopping centre in the northern Scandinavian city of Oulu on Thursday, according to authorities.
According to the NBI, the suspect made an attempt to harm another child who was traveling with the sufferer.
The 12- yr- old was severely crippled but was in stable situation on Friday, said the NBI.
The intruder, who is now suspected of two attempted killings, “has a background in extraordinary right activities”, the NBI said.
A security guard in the store “managed to prevent the suspect before he caused any further harm,” according to NBI detective director Ari Soronen.
The suspect was a former important part of the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group that has been banned in Finland since 2020, according to a report from YLE’s people journalist.
The suspect was found guilty of stabbing someone at a far-right function in a catalogue in 2013.
Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo strongly condemned the stabbing, calling it a” cruel assault on kids” on the social media platform X.
” Significantly- right violence is a real danger in Finland. There is no place for fanaticism of any kind in this land, he claimed.
Before police revealed the suspect’s appropriate- wing extremist history, the mind of Finland’s nationalist right Finns Party, Finance Minister Riikka Purra, linked the attack to gang violence.
” In the middle of the day, in the middle of a shopping centre, a stabbing of a child… With gang crime, groups, etc., we are sadly following the same pattern as in other places”, she wrote on X Thursday, prompting a storm of criticism against her speech.
