An appeal against the verdict in the 2019 Kuopio school sword attack case has begun at the Eastern Finland Court of Appeal on Thursday, with the hearing expected to last six days.
Last November, the North Savo District Court sentenced Joel Marin to life imprisonment after finding him guilty on one charge of murder and 20 counts of attempted murder.
The attack took place at the Savo Vocational College in a classroom located in a Kuopio shopping centre. A young Ukrainian woman died while 10 other people — including the suspect — were injured in the incident.
In its ruling, the district court found that Marin was of sound mind at the time of the attack and fully understood what he was doing. This verdict was based on a psychological evaluation carried out by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), and backed up by evidence that he had planned the attack for more than a year.
However, in his application to the Court of Appeal, Marin argued that he should be found guilty of a lesser charge and that his sentence should be reduced from a life sentence to a fixed prison term. The longest fixed prison term in Finland is 12 years, while a "life" sentence means an average of 14-15 years behind bars.
"We are going to the Court of Appeal with largely the same arguments as were heard in the district court," Marin's defence lawyer Matti Niiranen told Yle.
In addition to the perpetrator's appeal, six victims have also appealed the district court's verdict and asked for increased compensation for the injuries that they suffered in the attack.