Finland gunman dies in hospital after killing 10
Gunman who killed 11 of his fellow students at school in western Finland dies in hospital
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Tuesday, 23, Sep 2008 10:18
The gunman who killed ten of his fellow students at a school in western Finland has died in hospital.
Matti Juhani Saari, 22, turned his gun on himself after opening fire in the vocational college in Kauhajoki.
Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen, who named Saari earlier today, has expressed the government's condolences with the victim's families.
The country's interior ministry has pledged to hold an inquiry after admitting Saari had been questioned by police yesterday over videos posted on YouTube showed him shooting guns at a practice range.
Police said they came close to arresting Saari and confiscating his gun over the videos, which have since been removed.
The vocational college at Kauhajoki has about 200 students aged over 16. Kauhajoki, a town of 15,000 people, is situated in a remote part of western Finland, which delayed specialist police teams from arriving at the school.
Finland has high gun ownership rates but a low number of fatal firearm incidents.
However, in November 2007 seven students and the headmistress of Jokela high school were killed when a gunman opened fire.
Pekka-Eric Auvinen, 18, turned the gun on himself after the rampage at the school in Tuusula, which is about 60km north of the capital Helsinki.
The massacre had been predicted on Auvinen's YouTube channel hours before gunfire was first reported.