Helsinki prostitutes targeted with assault and battery

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Helsinki detectives are currently investigating four incidents in which prostitutes were assaulted and held up.
      According to Det. Insp. Seppo Sillanpää, there have been other such attacks as well, but some of the cases have not yet been formally reported to the police.
      The investigated offences took place last weekend in private residences in various parts of the Finnish capital. In the attacks, young men forced themselves into the homes of the women, threatened the women with firearms and knives, and ultimately tied up and gagged their victims.
     
"The weapons were not used. Instead, the women were beaten. These are serious cases", Sillanpää explains. "Once the women had been tied up, the perpetrators took their time to ransack the apartments. In all the cases money and possessions were stolen."
      All the victims were of foreign extraction, from Russia and Estonia, although some of them have already acquired Finnish citizenship through residence.
      The police are looking for two men suspected of having carried out the attacks. The men, who may have been assisted by one other man, were between 20 and 25 years of age, and around 170-175 centimetres tall. Both perpetrators had short dark hair and they wore balaclavas while committing the assaults.
      According to Sillanpää the suspects are of Russian origin.
     
At least one of the attempted muggings failed, when the intended victim managed to shut and lock the door before the men managed to force their way in.
      "We have received information of more than just four attacks and they are all being looked into. If the perpetrators are caught quickly, even more attacks may be reported", Sillanpää reckons.
      According to Sillanpää, prostitutes inform the police of violent attacks fairly easily, even if an official report of an offence is not put on file.
      Kari Tolvanen, head of the Helsinki Police Department's violent crimes unit, says that attacks against prostitutes seem to come in waves. "Sometimes it is a question of straightforward robberies, but occasionally the muggings relate to turf wars", Tolvanen notes.
      In December 2000, a Lithuanian prostitute was killed by a young man in a central Helsinki hostel. The couple had met outside the restaurant Mikado on Mannerheimintie.
      The following year, the man was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for manslaughter. His motive for the killing was never discovered.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Sex services offered at all Helsinki Thai massage parlours visited by HS (27.8.2007)
  Report says most Finnish prostitutes work part-time (27.5.2005)

Links:
  Salli - Association for sex workers in Finland

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