Suspicions of involvement by police in illegal acquisition of information now involve the Helsinki Police, which is the largest police unit in Finland. Helsingin Sanomat has learned that 12 investigators or commanders have been interrogated on suspicion of malfeasance and incitement to illegal telecommunications surveillance in late 2000 and early 2001.
One of those interrogated by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is Erkki Hämäläinen, who was chief of the Helsinki Criminal Police at the time. He and the other suspects deny any knowledge of wrondoing.
In this latest case the NBI learned that telephone calls from the mobile phone of a Helsinki man had been traced at the telecommunications service provider Sonera without a court order.
The Helsinki police is the third large police organisation that has been linked with allegations of violation of telecommunications privacy. Top figures in the Security Police as well as one NBI investigator already face charges of violating telecommunications privacy, or attempting to conceal it.
The latest investigation began when investigators found backup copies of e-mails in the possession of a Sonera systems expert. He had kept them on a CD ROM as his personal "life insurance", because he had doubts about the legality of certain requests for information from his superiors.
The systems expert had been asked to find the telephone records of the mobile phone calls made by a man from Helsinki during two days in December 2000.
Soon after that the police arrested the man whose calls had been traced on suspicion of murder.
The NBI believes that the telephone records were acquired specifically for the purposes of the murder inquiry. Another man was later convicted in the case.
Investigators feel that it is very unlikely that the telephone records of that particular man would have been examined by coincidence.
