Thursday, December 31, 2009
Six dead after Finland shootings
A gunman has shot dead four people in a crowded Finnish shopping mall after killing his ex-girlfriend, then turned the gun on himself.
Ibrahim Shkupolli, dressed all in black, stormed into the mall near Helsinki, killing one woman and three men at the supermarket where his girlfriend had worked.
The body of 43-year-old Shkupolli was later found at his home nearby and his ex-girlfriend was found dead in her apartment.
The woman, a 42-year-old Finn, had taken out a restraining order against Shkupolli, police said.
Witnesses said panic erupted at the Sello mall, one of the country's largest, when the shots rang out. Hundreds of workers were evacuated, trains were halted and helicopters brought in as police launched a manhunt for the heavily armed killer.
Police refused to discuss Shkupolli's nationality, but he is believed to be an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo.
The attack shocked hundreds of people who had gone shopping early on New Year's Eve.
One witness told the state broadcaster YLE that the gunman began shooting at people on the second floor of the mall.
"There were loads of people who were crying, and many vendors who were completely panicked," he said.
Another woman said she saw the suspect carrying a long-barrelled pistol and rushing past the check-out at the Prisma supermarket.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment