SHARE
COPY LINK

FINLAND

Release date set for triple murderer

Nikita Fouganthine, the man responsible for the brutal murders of three people in a village in northern Sweden in 1988, is to be released from jail in February, a Helsinki court ruled on Wednesday.

Release date set for triple murderer

Fouganthine, formerly known as Juha Valjakkala, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a family of three in the small town of Åmsele. He served his sentence in a Finnish prison.

Finland’s Court of Appeal ruled in June to overturn his supervised conditional release, but the Supreme Court later granted Foughantine the right to appeal the decision and has now sanctioned a conditional release, Finnish news agency FNB reports.

After nineteen years behind bars, Foughantine was let out of jail in February of this year but was promptly taken back to prison after violating the terms of his supervised conditional release.

Just two months before his supervision was due to end, the prison performed a surveillance check and found that he wasn’t at home. The telephone granted him as a condition of his release remained in his house, and the prison was unable to reach him.

He was arrested the following evening in northern Finland.

Fouganthine shot and killed a man and his 15-year-old son and stabbed the man’s wife to death in a graveyard in Åmsele, near Skellefteå, in 1988.

The Finn and his girlfriend were arrested a week later in Denmark. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and deportation. His girlfriend was sentenced to two years in jail for serious assault.

MOUNTAIN

New film chronicles Norwegian effort to give Finland a mountain

Although the Norwegian government has resisted public pressure to offer a mountain summit to neighbouring Finland as part of its independence centenary celebrations, the idea is far from dead.

New film chronicles Norwegian effort to give Finland a mountain
A screenshot from 'Battle for Birthday Mountain'. Photo: MEL Films
A newly-released short film chronicles the efforts of Bjørn Geirr Harsson, a retired Norwegian geophysicist, to convince Norway to alter its national borders in order to move the 1,361-metre (4,465-foot) high Mount Halti to Finland. 
 
The film, ‘Battle for Birthday Mountain’, can be seen here. Story continues below. 
 
The film’s director, David Freid, told The Local that her Los Angeles-based crew found the idea of Norway gifting a mountain peak to Finland fascinating. 
 
“On the surface, this is a cute film about a very unique kind of gift between nations. But at its heart is something real and relevant,” Freid said. “While we witness the rising tumult along international borders — from Ukraine and Russia, to the South China Sea, to Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico — the idea behind 'Birthday Mountain' is a rare international gesture worth admiring.”
 
As the film shows, the Norwegian government has ruled out the idea of transferring Mount Halti to Finland, with PM Erna Solberg saying that “border adjustments between countries raises complex legal issues.”
   
In this case the problems were insurmountable. The lofty gift-giving idea ran up against Article 1 of the Norwegian constitution which stipulates that the kingdom of Norway is “indivisible and inalienable”. 
SHOW COMMENTS