‘I am prepared to fight and die for my cause’

YESTERDAY’S shootings were carried out by Pekka-Eric Auvinen, who has also published a manifesto demanding war on the “weak-minded masses” and pledged to die for his cause.

YouTube appeared to have removed 89 videos linked to his account, many featuring Nazi imagery, shortly after the incident.

Finnish media reported someone posted a message two weeks ago on YouTube, warning of a bloodbath at the school. A video posted earlier yesterday by “Sturmgeist89” was titled “Jokela High School Massacre — 11/7/2007.”

“Sturmgeist89” identified himself as Auvinen, and said he chose the name “Sturmgeist” because it means “storm spirit” in German.

The video showed a picture of the school, which then disintegrated to reveal two images of Auvinen against a red background, pointing a gun at the screen. The clip is accompanied by the track Stray Bullet by rock band KMFDM, whose lyrics were also quoted by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the students behind the Columbine High School massacre of 1999.

Another short video clip, called “Just Testing My Gun,” showed Auvinen loading and cocking a handgun. He fired and hit several pieces of fruit in a wooded area; the camera then showed a close-up of the destroyed fruit, and a full-screen shot of him again. He waved and then walked out of view.

The site indicated that the youth appeared to be fascinated with killing. As well as video footage of the Columbine school shootings, it also included clips of the 1993 Waco siege in the United States, the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo, and bombs falling on Baghdad during the 2003 invasion.

Many showed victims being wheeled away or people running for their lives. Throughout all of this, the single word “DIE” constantly flashed across the screen. Other video clips included Nazi-war-criminal footage.

In the rambling text posted on the site, Auvinen said he is “a cynical existentialist, anti-human humanist, anti-social social-Darwinist, realistic idealist and god-like atheist”.

“I am prepared to fight and die for my cause,” he wrote. “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.”