Two people arrested in Helsinki on suspicion of funding terrorism and recruitment had foreign links but planned no attacks in Finland, police and intelligence officials said yesterday.
The daily Ilta-Sanomat earlier quoted unidentified police sources as saying the two were Finnish citizens of Somali origin.
“The case we are investigating is one of support, not a terrorist act as such,” Olli Kolstela of the Supo intelligence service told a press conference, adding that there was “no cause for concern in Finland.”
The head of the police investigation, Kaj-Erik Bjoerkqvist, said the two, a man and a woman, were of foreign origin and had links with overseas organisations, but declined to give details.
He said the police were investigating a number of people but only two had been arrested.
Supo said the inquiry had begun in 2009 following a routine police check. The pair was arrested on September 7, triggering searches of homes and other locations in the capital, police said.
In January, Finnish intelligence said it was keeping an eye on “several dozen” inhabitants of the Nordic country with contacts with the radical Shebab Islamist group in Somalia.
Earlier this month police in neighbouring Sweden arrested four people with reported links to the Shebaab on suspicion of planning an attack in the city of Gothenburg.
A count of terrorism against the four has since been withdrawn, but they still face charges of planning murder.
Source: The Gulf Times
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