Helsinki police have completed a preliminary investigation in two suspected counts of ethnic agitation and two suspected counts of defamation leveled against MP Ano Turtiainen (VKK).
The charges of ethnic agitation have now been passed to prosecutors for consideration, the police said in a statement released on Wednesday morning.
One of the charges relates to a tweet sent from Turtiainen's Twitter account in 2020, mocking George Floyd, who was choked to death by a police officer in the US city of Minneapolis.
Several criminal complaints were filed with Finnish police over the tweet, which Turtiainen subsequently deleted. However, it led to his ejection from the Finns Party's parliamentary group and to him establishing his own, one-man parliamentary group — and eventually to his formation of the Power to the People (VKK) party.
The second count also relates to a tweet from 2020, in which Turtiainen used a derogatory term to refer to taxi drivers with dark skin or who are of foreign background.
During the course of the preliminary investigation, officers also probed two suspected counts of defamation against Turtiainen in relation to comments about Finland's Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP). However, these case files were not forwarded to prosecutors for consideration and have been closed by police.
