2 Swedish brothers sent to 15 years imprisonment for attacks on police

The Eastern Uusimaa District on Friday sentenced two Swedish brothers to 15 years imprisonment each for the incidents of firing gunshots at police in Porvoo and Pirkanmaa in August last year.

The court awarded the highest punishment in Finland to Richard Nicholas Granholm and his younger brother Raymond Anthony Granholm as the various charges including attempted murder and aggravated assault brought against them were proved beyond doubt, reported national broadcaster Yle.

The elder brother, Richard Nicholas Granholm of 31 years old, who holds dual Finnish-Swedish citizenship, was convicted of weapons offence, aggravated robbery, 11 counts of attempted murder, violently resisting arrest, two counts of attempted aggravated assault and eight counts of reckless endangerment.

Raymond Anthony Granholm was convicted of a weapons offence, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault, violently resisting arrest, nine counts of attempted murder, two counts of attempted aggravated assault, eight counts of reckless endangerment and a charge of posing a serious danger to road safety, said the Yle report.

The convicts, however, argued in court that they had no intention to kill the police officials during the incidents took place in Porvoo on 25 August 2019 and they wanted to snatch the firearms from the police.

After the incident in Porvoo, they continued the attack in the south-central Tampere region where the brothers fired a number of shots at police during. Three vehicles of the law enforcing agency were damaged in the attack but none was injured.

The verdict also allowed the convict to appeal at the higher court against the judgement.