Parliamentary Ombudsman: Security Police did not break law in Rusi investigation

Absolution for former Interior Minister Ville Itälä over passing information to opposition leader

Alpo Rusi

Ville Itälä

Seppo Nevala

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In a report published on Thursday, Parliamentary Ombudsman Riitta-Leena Paunio says that there were no legal violations by the Security Police in the so-called Rusi espionage case, which caused a storm in Finland a couple of years ago.
      Paunio also found that former Interior Minister Ville Itälä (Nat. Coalition Party) did not break the law when he told opposition Centre Party chairman Esko Aho about the ongoing investigation into allegations of spying against the former Presidential aide Alpo Rusi in May and June of 2002.
     
Rusi had lodged a formal complaint with the Ombudsman, alleging that his privacy had been violated when information of suspicions that he had given confidential information to the East German security service Stasi in the 1970s was leaked to the media.
      Paunio said that giving information about a suspected crime is permissible if there is a good reason for revealing the information - even if the revelation could cause harm for the person in question.
      Earlier in the spring of 2002, the suspicions levelled against Rusi were known by President Tarja Halonen and former President Martti Ahtisaari (on whose staff Rusi had formerly worked), as well as by the then Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen and the Foreign Ministry Secretary of State Antti Satuli.
     
The head of the Security Police Seppo Nevala had suggested to Itälä in the spring that he should first talk to Lipponen, and should then tell Aho about the Rusi case.
      Itälä said that Lipponen had agreed that it would be fair to inform the leader of the main opposition party, who was preparing for upcoming Parliamentary elections. At the time, Rusi was planning to stand as a Centre Party candidate.
     
The Ombudsman also found that the Security Police had not violated the law in the preliminary investigation into the Rusi case. She found that the threshold for investigating the suspicions had been crossed quite clearly. However, there was never enough evidence for an actual indictment.
      Paunio criticises officials for not protecting Alpo Rusi from having the matter brought into the public eye prematurely. According to the law, the information of a preliminary investigation should have been kept a secret as long as the preliminary investigation was still in progress.
     
Responding to the decision, Rusi himself expressed satisfaction. Rusi said that the reasons given by the Parliamentary Ombudsman indicate that his complaint was both justified and warranted.
      Although the source of the leak to the press did not come out, despite an enquiry by the National Bureau of Investigation Finland’s central criminal police), Rusi feels that the report indicates that the leak very probably came from inside the Security Police
      Ville Itälä, who is now a Member of the European Parliament, was also satisfied with the decision. He told the Finnish News Agency STT that he had been convinced that the decision to reveal the information to Aho was legally correct, and that it was the only morally sustainable course of action.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Itälä defends decision to inform opposition leader of Rusi espionage investigation (14.1.2005)
  TV report: Ville Itälä leaked information on Rusi espionage suspicions (13.1.2005)
  Most damaging part of Stasi intelligence-gathering was flow of information to KGB (6.5.2004)
  Alpo Rusi: More than a year of silent torment over espionage allegations (16.9.2003)
  Alpo Rusi accuses Security Police of political conspiracy (16.9.2003)

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