Mass murderer denied request for reduced sentence

Mattias Flink, currently in prison for killing seven people back in 1994, will not have his life sentence reduced to 24 years, the Örebro District Court ruled on Wednesday

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In its decision, the court said that the circumstances surrounding Flink’s case are “exceptionally complicated” and that a time-limited prison sentence would need to exceed 24 years.

In 1994, the former ensign suffered a temporary, alcohol-induced psychosis on the streets of Falun in central Sweden

During the tirade he shot seven people to death with his AK 5 service weapon.

Yvone Jürgenson Lumila’s 21-year-old daughter Helle was one of Flink’s victims. She is very relieved over the district court’s decision to deny Flink’s request for a reduced sentence.

“It feels like the court took relatives’ feelings into account and that they view the victims’ lives seriously. That he could come out after 16 years is unacceptable for me. I could never live with that,” she told the TT news agency.

Jürgenson Lumila also considers a criminal relapse by Flink as a distinct possibility.

“He says that he will never drink liquor and never use a weapon, but that is only his word. We don’t know what could happen if he was provoked,” she said.

The court also cites the difficulty in determining the risk for a relapse.

Alcohol is considered one of the major risk factors for falling back into criminal behaviour and uncertainty remains about Flink’s abilty to refrain from drinking in the future, writes the court.