Kuopio school sabre killer sentenced to life

Joel Otto Aukusti Marin, the Finnish man who in October 2019 broke into a vocational school in the city of Kuopio with a saber and indiscriminately attacked the people present, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

The North Savo District Court found Joel Marin guilty of the murder of a young Ukrainian woman and 20 other counts of attempted murder, among other crimes.

According to the indictment, the intention of Marin, who was himself a student at the Savo Vocational College, was to kill as many randomly selected people as possible.

The sentencing court reached the same conclusion as the accusation and held that the defendant carried out his action in a particularly cruel manner.

And he did it - the court said after listening testimonies of the witnesses - in an arrogant way and showing insensitivity and contempt for the lives of his victims.

During the attack  he used a sabre, but he also had an airgun with him. The single fatality was a young Ukrainian woman, also a student, while nine other people were injured.

Victims randomly selected

The victims were selected completely randomly in the killer's classroom, where he later set a fire. But at the time of the crime, the school was provisionally housed in Kuopio's shopping mall Herman, so Marin also attacked one shopping centre employee.

The killer has been also convicted of aggravated damage, attempted assault and violent opposition to police.

During the trial, the defendant admitted the facts and claimed to have planned the attack for more than a year. During police interviews, he said he had read up on school attacks in several countries, including Finland and the United States.

The sentence is not final.