Former narcotics police chief sentenced to 10yrs for running Finnish drug ring — RT News
In an ironic case of Finnish corruption, the previous head of the nation’s drug squad police has been sentenced to a decade in jail… for operating a drug ring. He plans to attraction the ruling, sustaining his innocence.
Jari Aarnio, the previous head of Helsinki’s drug squad police, was discovered responsible of official misconduct and aggravated proof tampering by the Helsinki District Court on Thursday, in response to AP.
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He was handed a 10-year sentence, the complete time period demanded by prosecutors. The court docket decided Aarnio was the notorious “Pasila man,” who led an operation to import 791 kilograms of hash into Finland, the Helsingin Sanomat reported. Pasila is a reference to a Helsinki neighborhood the place telephones utilized by the ring’s chief – now confirmed by the court docket to be Aarnio – had been used.
The medication had been saved in barrels and dropped at the nation between March 2011 and January 2012, when Aarnio was in command of Helsinki’s drug police.
“Before being caught, Aarnio has in the course of the years 2012–2013 been proven to have obstructed in various methods the investigation of the importing of the hash barrels. He has additionally been proven to have tried in different methods to stop himself and different individuals concerned within the operation from being caught,” the court docket stated in a press briefing.
“The District Court concludes that Aarnio has flagrantly abused his place in Helsinki’s drug police and subsequently is responsible of various aggravated and lesser abuses of public workplace.” Aarnio was convicted of 17 crimes, together with misuse of official place and getting ready false proof, the Suomen Kuvalehti reported. An confederate was additionally handed a sentence of 10 years for his function within the drug ring on Thursday.
Aarnio, who was arrested in 2013 after 30 years on the pressure, denied all prices all through the trial, stating that every one of his actions had been authorized and a part of his function as Helsinki’s drug squad police chief. His attorneys say he plans to problem the sentence on the Helsinki Court of Appeal.
It isn’t the primary time that Aarnio has had a run-in with the legislation. He was sentenced to a few years in September after being discovered responsible of fraud and corruption associated to an possession curiosity in an organization that bought surveillance tools to Finnish police.
Cases like Aarnio’s are uncommon for Finland, a rustic which hardly ever sees corruption amongst its civil servants.
