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Police: Mall bomber used chat room
HELSINKI, Finland -- Police in Finland say a chemistry student suspected of carrying out the country's worst bomb attack since World War II used an Internet chat room to exchange tips on home-made explosives. They said they were checking chat rooms to try to find why Petri Gerdt, a 19-year-old student from a middle-class Helsinki suburb, set off a bomb in a busy shopping centre on Friday, killing himself and six other people and injuring about 80. Gerdt, the only suspect in the bombing, used the alias RC in a Finnish Internet chat room called "Forum for home chemistry" for people interested in explosives, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Inspector Rabbe von Hertzen told Reuters. "RC is Gerdt. It is the name he used," von Hertzen said. The authorities have shut down the site, which Finnish media said was a popular forum for discussing do-it-yourself bombs-making. "RC knew a lot about chemistry and he was an expert at explosives," the chat room host, who was not named, told Finnish national radio news YLE.
The 3kg home-made bomb exploded in a shopping centre in Vantaa -- the Helsinki suburb where Gerdt lived with his parents and attended a local technical college. Police said the materials used to make the bomb were unusual and they had not yet been able to identify them. NBI officials said material taken from Gerdt's home, including a computer and information on bomb making, had linked him to the bombing and pointed them to the chat room and other sites. The suspect had no criminal record and is thought to have acted alone. Shocked classmates described him as an introvert who often used the Internet, liked laboratory classes and might have recently split up with his girlfriend. Politicians said the blast was forcing leaders and the public to ask why it should happen in their relatively crime-free Nordic country. "We are used to not having to worry about our safety in public places. We even expect our leaders to be able to move openly among the public," the daily Hufvudstadsbladet said. Security measures have been stepped up at public places, people have lit candles and left flowers near the cordoned-off shopping mall, and a memorial service has been held.
Only a day after the Finnish blast, bombs ripped through a packed nightspot on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali -- like Finland a traditionally peaceful place -- killing more than 180 people and injuring hundreds more. Contributions to the chemistry chat room by RC gave no clear clues to a planned bomb attack. "I have not taken part in any larger accidents, but once I dreamt that a police car drove to the site of the detonation, but luckily I was already floating to other places," Reuters reported RC as writing. "In my next dream I was in the deep forest." In the same message RC also quoted lyrics from dead rapper Tupac Shakur's song "Hail Mary," saying: "I ain't a killer but don't push me...revenge is like the sweetest joy." RC also signed off "Killuminati," echoing Tupac Shakur's album "Don Killuminati -- The 7-Day Theory." Gerdt's use of the chat room seemed sure to revive the question of policing the Internet. "Shoe bomber" Richard Reid said he had learnt how to make a bomb from the Internet, members of the al Qaeda network are suspected of obtaining bomb-making technology there and the 1999 Columbine High School killers warned of their plans via the Internet before acting.
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