Four life sentences in murder for hire case

Wiretap in drug case leads police to killers

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Four life sentences for murder were handed down on Friday in the case of a missing Turkish man believed to have been the victim of a hired killing.
      Helsinki District Court found that three of the defendants in the case had actually killed Volkan Ünsal, while the fourth had hired the killers. Consequently all four were found guilty of murder. The apparent motive for the killing was a disagreement among thieves over the sharing of loot from a massive cash heist at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport in 2002, and revenge for Ünsal's opening up to police over the robbery.
      The body of Ünsal, who had lived in Sweden, was never found. Nobody has confessed to the crime, nor have any witnesses come forward.
      Nevertheless, police were able to assemble sufficient evidence to convince the court that Ünsal had been killed according to plan on October 16, 2003 in an apartment in Vuosaari in the east of Helsinki.
     
The three who were convicted of actually killing Ünsal were Raimo Juhani Andersson, 48, Ilkka Jani-Markus Leinonen, 34, and Janne Tapio Raninen, 27. Chilean-born Stockholm resident Leopoldo Gonzalez Carmona, 31, was found guilty of hiring the other three for the purpose.
      Andersson had spoken about the killing in a hotel room that was under police surveillance for other reasons. He had spoken about the "white shotgun method", involving strangulation. He also spoke of burying a body, destroying evidence, the number of people involved, and the payment for the killing.
      Police were listening in on the telephone calls of the group because they were suspected of involvement in the illegal drugs trade.
     
The court also found it suspicious that Leinonen had burned the sofa and rugs of the apartment in question.
      Traces of the victim's blood were found in the apartment, and dogs trained in sniffing out bodies identified the smell of a corpse there and in the van believed to have been used in transporting the remains. The buttons of Ünsal's coat were found among the ashes of a furnace owned by Andersson, and his engagement ring and watch were found in Andersson's possession.
      The court also heard that Gonzalez Carmona had threatened to kill Ünsal over disputes surrounding the Arlanda robbery.
      After the killing Raninen and Andersson went to Stockholm, where they met Gonzalez Carmona, who later sent a courier to Finland with an envelope containing money. This convinced the court that Gonzalez Carmona had, in fact, commissioned the killing.
      A fifth defendant, the woman who rented a van to the others, was charged with complicity, but was acquitted.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Key witness gives evidence from behind bullet-proof screen on day three of murder trial (16.12.2004)
  Murder trial hears defendants' explanations on Tuesday (15.12.2004)
  Four men on trial in murder case, despite lack of body (14.12.2004)

Helsingin Sanomat