Four get prison sentences for graffiti - total of 22 convictions
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Helsinki District Court sentenced four men to prison Tuesday in a massive graffiti case. Most of the 22 people who were convicted got off with fines. The court also ordered the perpetrators to pay tens of thousands of euros in compensation for the vandalism. Only two defendants were acquitted.
The prison sentences were among the harshest ever handed down in Finland for defacing property with graffiti.
The police investigation was exceptionally large for a case such as this one. The number of suspects, injured parties, and individual acts of vandalism was very high. Most of the crimes took place in 2003 and 2004.
The harshest sentence, a year and five months, was given to a 19-year-old Helsinki man. He was convicted of more than 200 acts of vandalism, one of which was considered aggravated.
In the aggravated case, he and two other men had spray-painted an area of about 300 square metres on six waggons of the Helsinki Metro. He was also found to have used a felt-tip marker to deface the interiors of public transport vehicles.
The court ordered him to pay a total of more than EUR 17,000 in damages to Helsinki city Transport (HKL), the state railway company VR, and the Finnish Rail Administration.
The prison sentence was not suspended because the man had two prior criminal convictions as a juvenile.
A 22-year-old Helsinki man was sentenced to a year and four months imprisonment. The court found him guilty of more than 240 acts of vandalism. He was ordered to pay more than EUR 12,000 in damages. Most of the compensations are to go to HKL, VR, and the City of Helsinki.
The court felt that the sentence should be near the maximum for the crimes, because of the large number of acts, and because the man had been received a number of suspended sentences.
However, the court noted that it had reduced the punishment by six months, because the man had helped investigators by volunteering information on what he had done.
Also getting prison sentences were two men - a 23-year-old and an 18-year-old.
The court handed down suspended prison sentences to 12 men and one woman.
Most of the defendants in the case were between the ages of 17 and 23. One 34-year-old was given a suspended sentence.
Helsingin Sanomat
