Central Finland District Court has sentenced a Petäjävesi man to three and a half years in prison for attempted arson after he tried to burn down a reception centre while around 80 asylum seekers were inside.
The man, who was born in 1991, threw five petrol bombs at the centre’s windows in an attempt to burn it down. Some of bombs, which consisted of a bottled filled with petrol, went through a window and caused a fire inside the entrance hall of the centre, which produced a lot of smoke.
Investigators said that the fired only burnt itself out through a lack of further fuel once the petrol had burnt, and that if flammable material had been present in the entrance hall the result could have been a lot worse.
According to the charges the man had intended to cause serious danger to the lives of those inside the centre at the time.