From robbery fallout to a contract on Ünsal's life
Ünsal was a Swedish-Turkish national connected to the aftermath of the 2002 Arlanda Airport robbery in Sweden. Finnish reporting described him as having provided information to police and entered witness protection after fearing retaliation from criminal associates. He later left the protection programme and travelled to Finland.
According to court reporting, a contract had been placed on his life before he arrived in Finland. Ünsal was killed on 16 October 2003 in an apartment in Vuosaari, eastern Helsinki. The later Aarnio proceedings described the killing as a planned underworld hit tied to the dispute over money from the Arlanda robbery.
Four life sentences for the murder
The criminal responsibility for the killing itself was established years before the separate case involving Jari Aarnio. Yle reported that three Finnish nationals and a Swedish man who ordered the hit were sentenced to life imprisonment for Ünsal's murder.
One of the convicted participants was described in later proceedings as Ünsal's childhood friend. Those convictions are the basis for treating the murder as adjudicated: the later controversy concerned whether other people also bore criminal responsibility, not whether the four convicted men had been sentenced for the killing.
The later Aarnio prosecution
In 2020 prosecutors brought an unusual murder case against Jari Aarnio, the former head of the Helsinki police narcotics unit. Prosecutors alleged that Aarnio had advance knowledge of the planned killing and, because of his position as a police officer, had failed to take steps required to prevent it.
The Helsinki District Court convicted Aarnio in December 2020 and imposed a life sentence. The case was notable because the alleged criminal liability was based on failing to prevent a known murder rather than physically participating in the attack.
Appeal court overturned Aarnio's conviction
In February 2022 the Helsinki Court of Appeal overturned Aarnio's murder conviction. It found that the prosecution had not established the special legal responsibility required to convict him for failing to prevent the crime, and it also rejected the alternative allegation that he had aided and abetted the murder.
The appeal court also left in place the dismissal of the murder charge against former gang boss Keijo Vilhunen. The final public record therefore requires a careful distinction: four men were convicted and given life sentences for the 2003 killing, while the later murder case against Aarnio ended in acquittal on appeal.