Three teenagers facing murder and several other charges were found to be criminally responsible for killing a 16-year-old boy in Helsinki's Koskela district last December, according to court-ordered psychiatric evaluations of the young defendants.
According to prosecutors, the teens lured the victim to the Koskela Hospital area on 4 December 2020 in order to subject him to a violent attack. The defendants were also 16-years-old at the time of the brutal and deadly assault.
A statement by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) to Helsinki District Court issued on Friday said a psychological evaluation had found the defendants were of sound mind and therefore criminally responsible on the night of the killing. This means the suspects could now face sentencing.
All three suspects received psychological evaluations at separate facilities over the course of the spring and summer.
The final verdict in the long-running case will be delivered on Friday 3 September at 14:00, the court announced on Friday.
Legal arguments
In court, lawyer Janne Nuutinen, representing the victim's family, said the psychiatric examination confirmed that the killing was intentional.
Lawyers representing the accused argued that the publicity the case had attracted brought with it adverse effects that should reduce any eventual sentence.
Although the names of the underaged defendants have not been reported in the mainstream media, they have been circulated on social media. Two threatening letters have been sent to one of the defendants in prison.
The lawyer representing the youngest of the three told the court that despite the conclusion of the THL report, their client may have been of diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.
'Extensive and brutal' violence
On Friday, 4 December, the victim was subjected to a brutal, cruel, and humiliating ordeal for several hours, prosecutors said in March.
The perpetrators eventually left the victim lying on the ground at the scene, where his body was discovered by construction workers three days later.
Police uncovered evidence during the pre-trial investigation that the victim had been assaulted at the same location on each of the three previous Friday evenings.
Other details regarding the defendants' psychological evaluations were not made public. However, the process involved looking at whether the accused had fully understood the consequences of their actions when they carried them out.
If the three defendants had been found to have acted with diminished responsibility, any prison sentence handed down could have been reduced by up to a quarter.
Prosecutors have demanded 12, 11, and 9.5 years prison sentences for each of the three on the charges of murder as well as for the prior assaults and related charges.
All three of the defendants have denied the intentional manslaughter charges, but two admitted being guilty of aggravated assault and aggravated involuntary manslaughter and the third suspect admitted to assault in the attack.