Finland: Turku attack suspect says he had targeted women

HELSINKI, April 17 (Xinhua) and Reuters with photograph from the Nigerian newspaper Pulse

The suspect of the attack that left two dead and eight others injured last August in Turku, Finland said Tuesday that he had targeted women.

Questioning of the suspect Abderrahman Bouanane began on Tuesday morning.

Bouanane is facing two murder charges and eight attempted murders with terrorist intent. The defense has admitted to the deeds, but has denied the terrorist intent or any plan to carry out the attack.

Bouanane said he was irritated by women in his native country Morocco and later in Italy and Germany. He said his first victim in Turku smiled at him and that bothered him. He also said he realized she was distributing religious leaflets at the market place.

Bouanane told the court that before the attacks last August, he had visited mosque and recorded a video in which he talked about U.S.-led air strikes in Syria and the fight for Islamic State. When he started the attacks on the market square, he said, he couldn’t control himself.

“I honestly felt like I was controlled remotely… The idea was to keep attacking as long as a head falls,” Bouanane said via an interpreter, according to the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat’s online edition.

Hannu Koistinen, one of the prosecutors said the psychiatric testing carried out by an independent Finnish authority confirmed Bouanane was criminally responsible. Koistinen reminded though that the testing applied to the time of the alleged crime, not to his later state of mind. Police said he was a “lone wolf” who saw himself as a soldier for Islamic State.

After the lunch break during the trial, the accused refused to sit down on his chair and wanted to sit on the floor. He was denied the request and taken away.