Finnish Kidnaper, Hostage Die in Getaway Explosion

A Finn who at one point held 13 captives during an odyssey of crime that lasted nearly 14 hours was killed with a hostage Saturday when his getaway car exploded, just after police fired through the windshield.

Police said besides the two dead, 12 people, mostly officers, were injured when the car erupted at a blockade in the rural town of Mikkeli.

An investigation will be conducted, police said, to determine whether police gunfire set off the explosion or whether the 36-year-old kidnaper detonated rock-blasting explosives he was known to be carrying.

Police gave this account:

They tried for two hours at the blockade to get the man, armed with a sawed-off shotgun, to release three hostages he was holding in a Volkswagen.

Hostage at Wheel

The man, identified as Jorma Kalevi Takala, refused and ordered the male hostage at the wheel to drive the car at police vehicles. An officer shouted for the hostages to flee from the car.

Two women hostages leaped from the auto seconds before an officer standing in front of the car fired through the windshield. An instant later, the vehicle disintegrated.

Tuominen said a uniformed officer stepped in front of the car to protect one of the fleeing women.

“The constable, who was carrying a gun, then fired through the front window of the car,” he said. “I heard four or five shots.”

The car promptly exploded, and police said people standing nearby were burned, hit by fragments, stunned by the impact from the blast, and otherwise injured.

14-Hour Ordeal

The explosion just before dawn Saturday ended an incident that began almost 14 hours earlier at a suburban Helsinki bank 125 miles to the southwest.

Takala entered the Kansallis Osake Pankke bank with shotgun and explosives, took 13 people hostage and demanded an undisclosed ransom.

He let two elderly hostages leave the bank and then took only three hostages with him after police provided him with a car and a suitcase said to contain ransom money.

The two women were identified as Tuula Anita Siikanen and Anne Haemaelaeinen, both bank employees. The dead hostage was identified as Jukka Tauno Antero Haekkinen, 25, believed to be a bank customer.

Police said the hostage-taker was identified through fingerprints as Takala, a man with a police record for minor offenses. The nature of Takala’s earlier offenses was not disclosed.

Earlier in the incident, police described Takala as “very cold-blooded and methodical.”