kontulib
April 28th, 2003, 02:18 PM
This case happened here in Helsinki on February 1999. Read this text carefully and vote then, what punishment/sanction should be fair to her. Your opinion.
Sillanpää guilty of three counts of manslaughter
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Monday saw the resolution of one of the strangest cases in recent Finnish criminal history, as a court in Helsinki found 31-year-old Sanna Sillanpää guilty on three counts of manslaughter and a further two of attempted manslaughter, but waived sentence on the grounds that the accused was not mentally fit, based on psychiatric reports. Sillanpää, who is suffering from acute paranoid schizophrenia, will be placed in a mental hospital.
Sillanpää was initially charged with murder after she opened fire and killed three men at close quarters in an indoor firing range in downtown Helsinki last February. As she was leaving the firing range, she also attempted to shoot two other men who were present. Sillanpää escaped from the building where the shootings took place, but was later picked up by police - largely as the result of a fortunate series of coincidences - as she attempted to board a plane for London.
Not least because of the gender-factor involved (Finnish women do not make a habit of executing men with pistols), the case attracted a great deal of media attention. Ms Sillanpää compounded the mystery of what had caused her to shoot three apparent strangers on a whim, as she refused to speak a word to police or anyone else in the wake of the incident. Her only words at the original arraignment were a compulsory "Not guilty". It became obvious to investigators, however, that a mass of physical and other evidence pointed to Sillanpää's having committed the crime, though with clearly diminished responsibility.
The court also ordered compensation to be paid by Sillanpää in the sum of around FIM 900,000 (EUR 150,000), which is roughly equivalent to the property confiscated from her shortly after her arrest. The payments in damages were much reduced from those requested by the plaintiffs, and this gave their counsel an opportunity to complain that the sufferings of dependents who had lost a husband, father, or son were being undervalued. He noted that they were conspicuously smaller than the hefty sums paid out to Finnish Ski Federation officials after a libel case involving the Finnish News Agency earlier this year.
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Sillanpää guilty of three counts of manslaughter
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Monday saw the resolution of one of the strangest cases in recent Finnish criminal history, as a court in Helsinki found 31-year-old Sanna Sillanpää guilty on three counts of manslaughter and a further two of attempted manslaughter, but waived sentence on the grounds that the accused was not mentally fit, based on psychiatric reports. Sillanpää, who is suffering from acute paranoid schizophrenia, will be placed in a mental hospital.
Sillanpää was initially charged with murder after she opened fire and killed three men at close quarters in an indoor firing range in downtown Helsinki last February. As she was leaving the firing range, she also attempted to shoot two other men who were present. Sillanpää escaped from the building where the shootings took place, but was later picked up by police - largely as the result of a fortunate series of coincidences - as she attempted to board a plane for London.
Not least because of the gender-factor involved (Finnish women do not make a habit of executing men with pistols), the case attracted a great deal of media attention. Ms Sillanpää compounded the mystery of what had caused her to shoot three apparent strangers on a whim, as she refused to speak a word to police or anyone else in the wake of the incident. Her only words at the original arraignment were a compulsory "Not guilty". It became obvious to investigators, however, that a mass of physical and other evidence pointed to Sillanpää's having committed the crime, though with clearly diminished responsibility.
The court also ordered compensation to be paid by Sillanpää in the sum of around FIM 900,000 (EUR 150,000), which is roughly equivalent to the property confiscated from her shortly after her arrest. The payments in damages were much reduced from those requested by the plaintiffs, and this gave their counsel an opportunity to complain that the sufferings of dependents who had lost a husband, father, or son were being undervalued. He noted that they were conspicuously smaller than the hefty sums paid out to Finnish Ski Federation officials after a libel case involving the Finnish News Agency earlier this year.
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