2 co-passengers nabbed, grilled, but set free

Hours into the Anglo-Finnish car driver was killed at Lempäälä in a shootout with the police on Saturday afternoon, the law enforcers nabbed the car passengers, too.

The arrested were two Finnish youths of 20 and 26 respectively. The first of them was caught at about 10.30pm in the same area, while the other passenger was nabbed in the early hours Sunday in Tampere near the Rieväkatu business park.

They are finish, were grilled intensively regarding the Saturday’s incidents after their arrests, but both of them were released later, evidently finding no incriminating connection of them with the fiasco.

According to the police, they signalled the car to pull over at Lempäälä near Tampere on suspicion of carrying dubious people. But, the British-born driver did the opposite. He suddenly launched an escape attempt racing the car at full throttle.

The police, after chasing the car for several kilometres, could overtake and force it to stop at around 3.00pm. And that was when, no one knows why, the driver suddenly opened fire at the police personnel with a ‘sawed off pipe gun’, drawing joint fire. He was shot dead in a matter of minutes.

The police confiscated the vehicle along with several homemade guns found in it. They said the firearms seized from the car were not made industrially.

The driver who came to that violent end was a British immigrant of 26 living in Finland for several years.