Far right assaulter gets increased sentence after appeal

The Helsinki Court of Appeals on Friday increased the sentence by three months on a far right radical for assaulting another man, local media reported.

Jesse Torniainen, 27, a founding member of the Finnish chapter of the far right Nordic Resistance Movement, now will serve two years and three months in prison over aggravated assault.

However, the new sentence fell short of an imprisonment of more than five years requested by the prosecution for causing the death of a 28-year-old bystander of a demonstration in September 2016 near the central railway station in the Finnish capital.

The victim was then kicked by Torniainen and hospitalized, but he left the hospital on his own before re-admission and died several days after of a head wound sustained when he fell to the ground. Both the Helsinki appeal and district courts said the assault could not be proven the direct cause of the death.

The prosecution and the defense each lodged an appeal. In its Friday decision, the appeal court also described the attack motivation as an outrage towards the victim's opposition to "the racist values of the Nordic Resistance Movement," making this the grounds for an increased sentence.

Previously in December 2016, the Helsinki District Court did not blame the assault on racist motivation in its decision.

The appeal court on Friday also referred to a ban ordered last November by a Finnish court on the Nordic Resistance Movement, which said the neo-Nazi organization "flagrantly violated the principles of good practice."