The trial of an 18-year-old man facing three manslaughter charges related to a fatal car crash in August of last year began at Pirkanmaa District Court on Wednesday.
The single-vehicle crash took place in Nokia, near the city of Tampere, at just after 1am on 16 August 2020. The car veered off the road and collided with a tree, instantly killing three teenage passengers and mildly injuring the driver.
The driver, who was a minor at the time of the collision, also faces charges of aggravated drunk driving and aggravated traffic safety endangerment.
The prosecutor, Pasi Vainio, charged the man with murder, rather than manslaughter, due to three exceptional features of the case.
The first was the large number of victims, secondly that the victims were all in the same car and no other vehicle was involved in the crash.
The third factor, according to the prosecutor, was related to intent, claiming the collision was not a case of negligence. Therefore, he said previously, the charges were murder, not aggravated manslaughter.
The court was shown evidence of video footage that was uploaded to the social media platform Snapchat before the vehicle slammed into the tree.
The defendant has denied driving the vehicle at the time of the crash but said that he had driven it earlier that night.
He also said that he did not recall uploading posts to Snapchat at the time of the accident.
As the defendant was a minor at the time of the crash, the prosecutor has demanded that the man be sentenced to nine years imprisonment.
'Scared' passenger
The prosecutor said video evidence showed that the car had reached a speed of up to 170kmh and on impact with the tree was going at least 120kmh, saying that the driver's reckless and life-threatening actions had come as a surprise to others in the car.
According to the prosecution, one of the crash victims sent a message during the ride about being frightened.
The prosecutor also said that the defendant had engaged the emergency handbrake, causing the car to drive off the road, slipping sideways. The force of the vehicle caused the tree to snap in half.
The defence said it was not clear whether the parking brake was applied while the car was in motion or if it was engaged after the crash.
The man escaped serious injury in the collision because the vehicle's right side hit the tree, which deployed the driver's seat air bag, largely protecting him.
The young man in the passenger seat, born in 2003, was wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, but the female victims sitting in the back, both of whom born in 2002, were not wearing seat belts. All three were killed instantly in the collision.
Mood changed
The prosecutor said the young man was drinking while driving and that his blood alcohol concentration level (BAC) of 1.86 promille (mg per ml of blood).
Among other things, the videos uploaded to social media showed various situations from that night, including images of the four youths riding in the car. A video taken at one point that night showed someone else besides the defendant driving the car.
The prosecutor said the video evidence also showed the defendant driving the car in the oncoming lane of traffic and that the mood inside the vehicle had changed.
The defendant, according to the prosecutor, was also using a cell phone as he drove, filming videos and texting. The evidence for this was seen in the defendant's Snapchat messages, photos and videos.
The court has set aside three days for the criminal trial.
EDIT - An earlier version of this story stated that the driver was suspected of murder. The correct charge was actually manslaughter.