Man sentenced for throwing petrol bomb at refugee reception center in Finland
Xinhua, November 21, 2015 Adjust font size:
A man who had thrown a petrol bomb at a refugee reception center in Finland was sentenced to one year in prison, reported Finnish News Agency STT on Friday.
The fifty-year-old man attacked the reception center in Kouvola, southern Finland, in late September, when the center accommodated more than one hundred asylum seekers.
The alleged was arrested by police soon after the attack. No one was hurt.
On Friday, Kymenlaakso district court sentenced the man to one year imprisonment for a serious sabotage attempt.
The court considered the motive to be racism, and the case was sentenced as an aggravating circumstance.
The defendant denied that the act was racially motivated, saying he had been drunk at the time.
The defense lawyer said the man wanted to protest against the government's refugee policy, believing there were too many refugees coming into the country and this might entail excessive costs.
In the second half of September, about 500 refugees crossed the border into Finland from Sweden per day.
Prosecutor Heidi Savurinne argued the act could have been life-threatening and could have resulted in a lot of economic damage.
According to STT, both the defense lawyer and the prosecutor are to consider whether the case should be transferred to an appeals court. Endit