On Friday, A Finnish court had handed a life sentence to two Finnish men for actively taking part in the contract killing. The accused duo had used the dark web platform to plan the murder of one of the men’s father.
The accused duo had been identified as Aatu Viljami Halonen, aged 20 years and Mika Markus Aleksi Hytönen, aged 19 years. Earlier, the Pirkanmaa District Court had found both of the accused guilty. The former had been charged with soliciting murder, while the latter had been found guilty of carrying out the murder act.
This particular contract killing case had marked the first murder-for-hire trial in Finland arranged online via the dark web. It is the fourth hire-a-hitman killing (contract killing) conviction in the country in the past two decades.
In January 2020, the Tampere police discovered a corpse of a man aged 44 years in his residence following his neighbors’ report of an assault. They said that the assault took place outside between the victim and the contract killer. Following the suspect’s arrest, the cops had uncovered evidence on the fact that the case was of contract killing, ordered by the victim’s own son.
Hytönen had confessed to having murdered the victim but claimed to have solely intended to rob him. The court had heard from the accused’s fiancé that he had expressed his fantasies for some time of taking another person’s life.
In 2019, Hytönen had posted an advertisement on the darknet via Tor offering his services as a professional hitman and asked to pay in Bitcoin (BTC) for the contract killing orders.
Hytönen had turned Halonen into the police. As per the prosecution, the motive for the murder was possibly financial. But, the roots of the contract killing laid in the victim’s treatment of the accused as a child.
The contract killing fee had been said to be 10,000 Euros and was to be paid from the victim’s inheritance that he had left behind. With his lawyer’s help, Tomi Borgenström, Halonen had continued denying his part in his father’s homicide. He claimed to have been framed.
Eventually, the sentencing took place nine months after the Pirkanmaa District Court had found the then 19-year-old Hytönen guilty of contract killing and the 20-year-old Halonen guilty to solicit murder. Both the accused had been ordered to undergo psychological evaluations at that time. The results had been presented in the court this Friday morning and both the defendants had been found perfectly fit to stand a trial. However, the verdict and the sentences can still be appealed.
Source: YLE
Disclaimer: Read the complete disclaimer here.
Hi ,pls help to make some money on the dark net