Homosexual Moroccan asylum seeker 'targeted women' in Finland knife attack

[ed...@posti.com]

HELSINKI/TURKU, Finland (Reuters) - A Moroccan man who was
arrested for killing two women in a knife rampage was an asylum
seeker who appeared to have targeted women in Finland's first
terrorism-related attack, police and a Red Cross official said
on Saturday.

The 18-year-old suspect, arrested in the city of Turku following
Friday's attack in which eight other people - six of them women -
were wounded, arrived in Finland last year, police said. Police
shot the suspect in the leg before his arrest.

Police also arrested four other Moroccan men over possible links
to him and issued an international arrest warrant for a sixth
Moroccan, they said.

Finnish broadcaster MTV, citing an unnamed source, said the main
suspect had been denied asylum in Finland, although police said
only he had been "part of the asylum process".

The manager of the Red Cross reception center in Turku, where
flags flew at half-mast on Saturday, told Reuters the suspect
was an asylum seeker. "I cannot comment on the application's
outcome," Heimo Nurmi said.

He said police visited the center on Friday and had detained
several people. "The arrests were non-violent," he added.

It was not clear if the attack was in any way linked to the
suspect's asylum application.

The case marks the first suspected terror attack in Finland,
where violent crime is relatively rare. Police said they were
investigating possible links to Thursday's deadly van attack in
the Spanish city of Barcelona.

"The suspect's profile is similar to that of several other
recent radical Islamist terror attacks that have taken place in
Europe," Director Antti Pelttari from the Finnish Security
Intelligence Service told a news conference.

Both of those killed in the Turku attack, and six of the eight
who were wounded, were women, the police said. The two who died
were Finns, and an Italian and two Swedish citizens were among
the injured.

"It seems that the suspect chose women as his targets, because
the men who were wounded were injured when they tried to help,
or prevent the attacks," said Crista Granroth from the National
Bureau of Investigation.

"The act was cowardly ... we have been afraid of this and we
have prepared for this. We are not an island anymore, the whole
of Europe is affected," Prime Minister Juha Sipila said.

SCREAMING

The stabbing spree occurred on Friday afternoon in the main
market place in Turku, on the southwest coast of the country,
160 kilometers from Helsinki.

"First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I
thought it's just kids having fun ... but then people started to
move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a
woman," said Laura Laine, who was sitting in a cafe.

"Then a person ran toward us shouting 'He has a knife', and
everybody from the terrace ran inside. Next, a woman came in to
the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying
someone's neck has been slashed open."

Four of the wounded were still in hospital, three of them in
intensive care, while the other injured persons would be sent
home on Saturday, the hospital said.

Turku's Iraqi, Syrian and Islamic community condemned the
attacks and organized a rally of solidarity in the city's main
square, but decided to cancel it due to security concerns.

"Finns and immigrants, and people from different religions, have
had very good relations in Turku... We are shocked, but I don't
see this changing that," said Abdirahman Mohamed, Chairman of
the Islamic community of Turku.

He said the Moroccan suspects were not familiar to him or to the
Islamic community in town, which has around 2,000 members.

TENSIONS

An Anti-immigration mood has been on the rise in Finland since
it received some 32,500 asylum seekers during the migration
crisis in 2015.

Tensions simmered on Saturday Turku as the anti-immigration
"Finland First" movement held a rally but it was met by counter-
demonstrators brandishing signs saying "No room for racism".

In Helsinki, about 200 people gathered in the rain to protest
against the construction of a mosque and Muslim immigration to
Finland in a rally planned by the Finnish far-right group the
Finnish Defence League (FDL) before the attack.

Some members of the nationalist Finns party, which was kicked
out of the government in June for their new hard-line anti-
immigration leadership, blamed the government for what they said
was too loose an immigration policy.

"The asylum system is the primary road for illegal immigration,
used also by the terrorists. Harmful immigration can be
controlled only by reducing Finland's attractiveness, or by
border controls," said Finns party lawmaker Ville Tavio.

The government has already tightened immigration policies in the
past few years, along with other Nordic states.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-stabbing-idUSKCN1AZ07S