Kauhajoki Gunman Dies In Hospital

A student who killed 10 people when he opened fire at a school in Finland before turning the gun on himself today has died from his injuries, a Finnish hospital spokesman confirmed.

Earlier, a hospital official had said the man had been "severely injured" by a gunshot wound to the head. The man, aged around 22, had been questioned over YouTube footage in which he was shown firing a gun, the Finnish interior minister said.

Anne Holmlund said the man was detained for questioning yesterday, but was released because police had no legal reason to hold him.

The gunman used a .22 calibre handgun in today's attack, which happened at the Kauhajoki Palvelualojen Oppilaitos vocational school, 180 miles north-west of Helsinki. It is understood he had received a licence for the weapon last month.

The YouTube clip showed images of a man in a leather jacket firing shots from a handgun in rapid succession at what appeared to be a shooting range. The location was given as Kauhajoki.

The footage was said to have been posted on the site five days ago and purportedly included a message that said: "Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war.'

The person who posted the clip identified himself as a 22-year-old with the name "Mr Saari". Local reports said police had identified the gunman as Matti Juhani Saari, a 22-year-old student, but this has not been made official.

The shooting, at a school for students aged 16 and over, was the second school shooting in Finland over the last 12 months. It began shortly before 11am, when around 200 people were in the building.

"A cold-blooded shooter entered the building with an automatic pistol and started cutting down students," Jukka Forsberg, a maintenance man at the school, said. "He also shot towards me, did not say anything ... once the bullets started to whizz by, I started running for my life."

According to reports, the gunman was carrying an automatic weapon and wearing a ski mask as he entered the school.

"Within a short space of time, I heard several dozen rounds of shots - in other words, it was an automatic pistol," Forsberg told the broadcaster YLE. "I saw some female students who were wailing and moaning, and one managed to escape out of the back door."

Timo Huovinen, a local journalist, told Sky News that students had been about to begin an exam when the gunman opened fire.

It is almost a year since nine people, including the gunman, died in a school shooting in the town of Tuusala, near Helsinki. Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six students, the school nurse and the principal before shooting himself at the Jokela high school last November.

Here at Metal From Finland, our hearts are with those affected by this terrible incident.