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Home Invasion: Finnish Homeowner To Be Jailed For Protecting His Home From Intruders, Ordered To Pay Damages

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 01:27 PST, Jul 20, 2016

A man’s home is his castle — right? It turns out that old adage doesn’t hold true in Finland. A Finnish homeowner just received a stiffer sentence than the thieves he was fighting off after an attempted home invasion.

It has taken the Finnish court a while to deliberate over the case, but said homeowner has now been sentenced to just over four years in jail — plus he has to pay a hefty fine — merely for fighting off three intruders who attempted to rob his home.

On top of that, the thieves themselves received a lesser sentence and will receive damages from their victim.

According to a report by the Finnish language news service, Helsingin Uutiset, the attempted robbery took place in April this year. When the victim — a 35-year-old man from the town of Hyvinkää, around 50 km north of Helsinki — heard someone knocking at the door of his suburban home, he immediately went to open it.

As the Finnish homeowner opened the door, three strangers — two men and one woman — rushed into his home, launching themselves at him with baseball bats and a gun. Fearing for his life, the man retreated to his kitchen, where he grabbed a knife and was able to use it to overpower the intruders and to save his own life.

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However, after four months of careful deliberation on the home invasion case, the court in Helsinki has come up with an unexpected ruling and the Finnish homeowner has been convicted of “excessive self-defense and attempted manslaughter.”

While the media in Finland doesn’t give any details on the severity of the injuries sustained by the three home invaders, it is known that they survived his retaliatory and self-defensive onslaught.

So, finally, as the court makes up its mind, said homeowner has been sentenced to an unconditional sentence of four years and two months behind bars. On top of this, he has been ordered to pay damages to his three attackers, the total of the fine payable being €21,000 (US$23,000).

As a reminder, his three attackers were wielding baseball bats and a gun when they launched themselves into the man’s home. Fittingly, they were convicted of felony home invasion and assault. However, their punishments are far less harsh than that of the homeowner.

The two men and one woman received a conditional sentence of one year and two months each, which is reportedly similar to probation or house arrest in Finland. The way it works is that the three wannabe thieves will serve their sentences outside of prison, but will have to follow certain jail-like rules.

Between them, the home invaders were also ordered to pay damages to the homeowner in the “princely” sum of €3,000 (US$3,300), so on the whole they got off much better than the poor man himself and even scored on the deal.

According to a report by RT News, fines and conditional sentences of this nature are the most common punishments meted out in Finland. While lengths of prison terms have recently increased, most Finnish jail terms are exceptionally short compared to international norms.

[Image via Piotr Adamowicz / Shutterstock]

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