A court-ordered psychological assessment has found that Juhani Sebastian Lämsä was not criminally accountable when he attacked two children of foreign background at the Valkea Shopping Centre in Oulu last June.
Lämsä, who has a history of neo-Nazi activity, has been on trial at Oulu District Court for two counts of attempted murder in relation to the incident.
During the trial, the court heard how Lämsä first stabbed a 12-year-old child, then tried to attack a 14-year-old, who managed to escape unharmed.
The court ordered that the contents of the psychological assessment, which was carried out by Finland's public health authority THL, remain sealed.
However, the court did reveal that the main finding was that Lämsä was not criminally responsible for his actions at the time of the attack, meaning that in the view of the assessors, he did not understand his actions or their consequences.
Defendant told investigators he was being "watched"
Following Lämsä's attack on the two children on 14 June, he told police that he thought he was being "watched" by some foreign intelligence service.
He claimed that this intelligence service operated technology that could read people's thoughts and even influence them to behave in a certain way. During the trial, the court heard that Lämsä had wondered to investigators if the source of this suspicion could be his own mental health problem.
He also told police that he attacked the two children because he thought they knew something about him, and were laughing at him, causing him to lose his temper.
"Then I had a flash. I followed them, and when I was close, I stabbed one of them," Lämsä told police during his interrogation.
Prosecutor alleges racist motive
The prosecutor in the case has previously told the court that Lämsä's attack was premeditated and had a racist motive, noting that both children were of foreign backgrounds.
Lämsä has denied this, and his defence has argued that the attack was spontaneous, and that he had not intended to kill anyone.
He has however admitted to stabbing the 12-year-old, but claimed the charge against him should be aggravated assault.
Although the prosecution had called on the court to sentence Lämsä to 10 years in prison, the results of the psychological assessment mean he will not face a custodial sentence. Instead, he will undergo involuntary treatment prescribed by THL.
The court's final verdict on the case will be given at a later date.
Yle has published Lämsä's name because of his history of violent crime as well as his long association with the banned neo-Nazi group Nordic Resistance Movement.
He was convicted of pepper-spraying Left Alliance politician Dan Koivulaakso at an Oulu pride event in July 2012. He was also found guilty of a stabbing at Jyväskylä's main library, which took place at the publication event for a book about the far right in Finland.
Lämsä's attack on the two children was one of three racially-motivated stabbings in the city of Oulu in the space of a few weeks last year.
In December, a 15-year-old was found not criminally responsible for stabbing a man of foreign background at the same shopping centre in the city, which police said they believed was a "copycat" attack.