Teenage boy acquitted of immigrant stabbing case in Oulu

A teenage boy, who was accused of stabbing a foreign background man near the Valkea shopping centre in Oulu in June, was acquitted of the charge, local media reported.

The Oulu District Court on Monday convicted the 15-year-old boy of the charge of attempted murder committed as a criminally unaccountable young person but the court in the verdict said that the allegation of deliberately premeditated murder brought against him was not proved beyond doubt.

In the case the prosecutor accused the boy of stabbing the foreign background man in a racially-motivated attack and filed charge of attempted murder against him.

Earlier, the attacker also admitted to police that the attack was racially-motivated and that he had intended to cause injury to the victim. He, however, denied the charge of attempted murder.

The court ruled that the suspect was criminally unaccountable at the time of the attack and he will therefore not be sentenced, reported national broadcaster Yle.

The defendant has been involuntarily undergoing treatment prescribed by Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) following a physiological assessment.

The boy attacked a 26-year-old Asian immigrant with a knife at the upper parts of his body and wounded him critically near the Valkea shopping centre in Oulu on his way home from work on June 18, 2024.

Earlier on June 13, a 12-year-old child was injured when a man with the background of extreme right activities attacked the child with knife at Valkea shopping centre.

In another incident a 23-year-old local man attacked the student of Kastelli high school with a knife on the road in between the school and Oulu University Hospital on September 9.