Another knife attack has taken place in a shopping centre in Finnish Uleåborg, where a right-wing extremist stabbed a 12-year-old last week. The attack is believed to be racially motivated.
In the latest attack, which took place late on Tuesday evening, an adult man with a foreign background was stabbed with a knife in the Valkea shopping centre. Shortly afterwards, a suspected perpetrator, aged between 15 and 18, was stopped and arrested, according to Finnish media.
The victim was taken to hospital with injuries to the upper body, but they are not life-threatening. The police are investigating the incident as an attempted murder and preliminarily believe it was racially motivated.
When the person was arrested, he expressed to the police in various ways that this was the case, says Markus Kiiskinen of the Uleåborg police to the news agency STT.
Nazi background
The police suspect that the young perpetrator was inspired by last week's knife attack. The attack took place in the same part of the shopping centre.
Last Thursday, a 12-year-old boy with a foreign background was attacked by an adult man in the same shopping centre. The boy was reportedly stabbed in the back several times without warning and seriously injured. The perpetrator attempted to attack another boy in the same company before security guards intervened.
The suspected knife man is 33 years old and has a well-documented background in right-wing extremist groups, including the Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement, according to reports from, among others, Uleåborgstidningen Kaleva. The man has previously been convicted of, among other things, a knife attack at a library, according to Yle. He is now suspected of two attempted murders.
At his first court appearance, the man covered his face with a scarf adorned with Finnish flags.
"Does not belong here"
The violent attacks are sparking reactions at the highest political level in Finland. Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and President Alexander Stubb both emphasize that racism does not belong in Finland.
"The news of the stabbing in Uleåborg evokes disgust. So does the possible racist motive behind the actions," Orpo writes on social media.
"I strongly condemn racism in all its forms," Stubb writes.
Uleåborg (Oulu in Finnish) is located in northern Ostrobothnia, approximately at the same latitude as Piteå on the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia. The city has around 200,000 inhabitants.
