A student shot dead ten people at a vocational college in western Finland today before shooting himself in the country's second school shooting in less than a year.
The gunman - named as culinary student Matti Juhani Saari (22) - died in hospital of a gunshot wound to the head this afternoon, authorities said.
Police confirmed today that they had interviewed him yesterday over videos he posted on YouTube showing himself brandishing a gun.
Saari entered the vocational school in the town of Kauhajoki this morning dressed in black and wearing a ski mask and started shooting at students and staff, witnesses said.
"A cold-blooded shooter entered the building with an automatic pistol and started cutting down students," said Jukka Forsberg, a maintenance man at the college. "He also shot towards me, did not say anything and once the bullets started to whizz by I started running for my life."
An hour and a half later, Saari shot himself in the head.
Nine people died at the scene, while a tenth died in hospital.
Saari had posted four videos on YouTube showing a man dressed in black or dark colours, firing a handgun at a shooting range. His YouTube user's profile included the words: "And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war."
It adds: "Whole life is war and whole life is pain. And you will fight alone in your personal war. War. This is war!"
In one video, entitled "Goodbye", the dark-clad man empties his gun into an off-screen target, walks to the camera and says "goodbye". The videos were taken offline soon after today's shooting.
Saari was interviewed by police yesterday over the videos but was later released as he had a permit for the weapon. The permit was not withdrawn.
"Police action will be examined in more detail later. The gunman had a temporary permit for a .22 calibre pistol, and he had received it in August 2008. It was his first gun," Interior Minister Anne Holmlund told a news conference.
"We have experienced a tragic day," Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen told a news conference in Helsinki.
The shooting raised the spectre of the killings at Finland's Jokela high school last year, where student Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal after broadcasting his intent with a video on YouTube. Auvinen shot himself and died later of his injuries.
Finland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, ranking third after the United States and Yemen, according to a study last year by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
After the last shooting, the Finnish government took some steps to toughen gun regulations. Today, it held an emergency meeting of governing coalition party leaders.
Kauhajoki is a municipality of 14,000 people located in the province of Western Finland. The Kauhajoki vocational school teaches catering, tourism studies and home economics.
Reuters