Gunman shoots dead three women in Finland town

HELSINKI: A gunman shot dead three women, including a local council official, as they were leaving a restaurant in a small Finnish town on Saturday night, police said.

Investigators cited by the SST news agency on Sunday said the municipal council head and two local journalists were killed in the town of Imatra by a man who was swiftly arrested.

The 23-year-old suspect, who was armed with a shotgun, already had a record of violent crime, police said.

He was interrogated on Sunday but the motive for the attack remained unclear and the attacker could have picked his victims at random, investigators said.

No other suspect was being sought.

Finland enjoys relatively low crime rates compared to other European nations but, with many Finns keen hunters, it has one of the biggest gun ownership rates in the world.

The town mayor Pertti Lintunen confirmed that among the victims was social-democrat council leader Tiina Wilen-Jappinen, who was in her 50s.