by Classic Finn » Thu Dec 31, 2009 4:51 pm
Profile: Finland gunman
Ibrahim Shkupolli had been ordered to keep away from the Prisma store
Ibrahim Shkupolli, 43, who is accused of killing five people and then himself in a shooting rampage in the southern Finnish city of Espoo, had a chequered love life and a history of run-ins with the police.
His final act of violence was the culmination of series of confrontations with a former girlfriend.
He first dated the Finnish woman, who has not yet been named, soon after his arrival in Finland in 1990.
An ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, he had left as Yugoslavia began to break apart, but it is not clear why.
His relationship with the woman lasted for 18 years, but it was not a monogamous one.
Shkupolli was also married to a woman of Albanian background, with whom he had a family, according to Finnish media reports.
It would appear he married her after coming to Finland - and after meeting the Finnish woman, with whom he maintained a relationship throughout.
That relationship broke down for the final time last year. She went to police to complain about his behaviour and the numerous threats he had made, including one to kill her.
A court imposed a restraining order, not only preventing him from approaching her, but also the place where she worked - the Prisma grocery store in the Sello shopping centre in Espoo.
This is the same shop where, on 31 December, dressed in black, he started firing at employees.
After killing four people at the shopping centre he fled. It seems Shkupolli then killed his former girlfriend at her flat on the outskirts of the city.
Police eventually found him at his own flat, where he had apparently killed himself.
Shkupolli had a previous conviction for causing bodily harm and had twice been fined for illegal possession of a handgun, in 2003 and 2007, the Finnish state broadcaster YLE reported. He was also facing several new charges.
He had a job, in a warehousing company, organising deliveries to the Prisma shop.
But his employer did not notice anything out of the usual in his behaviour prior to the shootings, according to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.
Royal Teardrop Society Scandinavian Bureau Chief of Staff
