'I did it because I hate the human race,' says Finland shooter, whose victims included eight women

The gunman who went on a killing spree at his college in Finland targeted female students, it has emerged.

Matti Saari, 22, killed eight women among the 10 people he shot in yesterday's massacre at a vocational college school in Kauhajoki, a rural town about 200 miles from Helsinki.



One of his two male victims was a teacher. Another female student was wounded and is recovering in hospital.



Saari then set fire to the bodies using inflammable liquid he had taken with him, making identification of the bodies more difficult.



Grief: A local teenager looks at tributes outside Kauhajoki vocational high school early this morning. Ten students died in the massacre

The deranged shooter left suicide notes showing he had been planning the massacre for up to six years.

Matti Saari, 22, left two notes in his dormitory at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality in western Finland, reports claim today.

Then, less than 24 hours after he was hauled in for questioning by police who became concerned after seeing videos of Saari firing a handgun posted on YouTube, he opened fire in his school, killing ten before turning the gun on himself.

He also had with him some homemade petrol bombs that he set off during the rampage.



Authorities said this morning that some of the bodies had been badly burned and may take time to officially identify.



Police believe a second person operated the camera during Saari's YouTube rants, and are now searching for that person.



They are also searching for a motive behind the atrocity.

The handwritten suicide notes left in Saari's dormitory explain he launched his attack because 'I hate the human race'.



The solution, he wrote, was 'Walther 22' - that is, the Walther .22 calibre handgun he used to carry out the slaughter and that he filmed himself using on YouTube.



The head of the police investigation, Jari Neulaniemi, said Saari left a note in his apartment.

Gunman: Matti Saari fires a gun at the camera in one of the videos foreshadowing the massacre he posted on the internet

'In the note, he said he hated mankind and the human race. And that he had been planning this since 2002,'

Neulaniemi said.

Students, families and friends are grieving in Finland today, with flags flying at half mast.



The main national daily Helsingin Sanomat replaced its usual front-page advertisement with a large picture of a woman adding a candle to a memorial in front of the school. The text above a picture of gunman Matti Saari read 'Why?'

He died later of a head wound in Tampere University Hospital.



Reports today claimed he had left a note in his apartment, and that he had been planning the massacre for six years.

Today Finland is questioning both its gun laws and its policing of the internet.



'The Web cannot be held responsible for this, but you can certainly ask how much the Web feeds the dark side of human nature,' the paper said in an editorial.

A woman covers her face in grief as she attends a memorial service last night

Saari was questioned by concerned police who had watched his YouTube videos less than 24 hours before the attack.

He was not detained because the videos 'did not threaten anyone' directly, said Finland's police chief - highlighting the difficulty in judging the risk of postings on the Internet.

But police refused to comment on why Saari was questioned on Monday and then released. He was allowed to keep his .22 calibre automatic pistol because it was licensed and he had not broken any laws.



Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said authorities needed to look into what can be done to better protect citizens, including possible changes in Internet monitoring and tougher gun laws.

Finland's prime minister today called for gun laws to be tightened.



Matti Vanhanen said he believed handguns should no longer be used outside shooting ranges.



He said: 'We have to tighten the law significantly. In terms of handguns that can easily be carried about, we have to think about whether they should be available for private people.



'In my opinion, they belong on shooting ranges. It was a good and an important-thing that the police got these hints in advance and that they reacted to the hints and the person was interviewed.



'We will obviously investigate what the foundation was for the decision to let him keep his weapon."



He declared today a day of national mourning and said authorities would decide whether there should be changes in internet monitoring.



Finnish President Tarja Halonen told broacaster YLE: 'The Internet and YouTube forums... are not another planet. This is part of our world and we adults have the responsibility to check what is happening, and create borders and safety there.'

Finnish police declined to detail their internet file on Saari or their talks with him on Monday, beyond they were carried out by 'an experienced policeman'.

Vanhanen said Finland should consider banning private handguns altogether, while Halonen also said the 'shocking' news will start a national dialogue on gun ownership.

'Finland is a northern country with large areas of nature and hunting is one of the common hobbies, and so of course there are thousands and thousands of people who do it quite legally. But that means also that many people have many weapons,' Halonen said.

Halonen said although the internet and web discussion forums were the domain of the younger generation, adults 'should also be active and see that the rules in real life are also the rules that people have to respect in all circumstances. We have to follow the situation there.'

Among the topics for discussion will be gun control and the differences between hunting rifles and hand guns, said Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb.

Mourners attend a memorial service in Kauhajoki Church last night, hours after the shootings

Gun ownership in Finland is among the highest in the world, but crime rates are low.

'The Kauhajoki shooter had a new gun permit for a small-calibre gun. Those calibres were enough, however, to end the lives of many young people and spread senseless pain and destruction widely,' Helsingin Sanomat said.

The Nordic nation has only started to recover from last November's school shooting, when 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed eight people, and then himself.

Finnish media focused on the similarities between the two shootings, including the use of boastful YouTube videos and the same calibre handgun.

'I am so scared and don't know what to do ... I thought this is a safe area. I've been living here for all my life. It's a small town and safe but I don't know if it's safe anymore,' said 17-year old Sanna Orpana, who was in Kauhajoki school during the shooting.



Criminologists say video-sharing websites offer killers unprecedented scope to get their messages across.

'This type of networking was not possible before the Internet era,' Aarne Kinnunen, a trained criminologist and adviser to Finland's justice minister, told Reuters.

Red Cross workers take a shocked student away from the school yesterday

'The Internet creates the image that there is a crowd of people that respect this type of behaviour and ... misrepresentation of reality.'

Videos linked to killing sprees gained widespread attention in 2007 when Cho Seung-Hui killed 33 people, including himself, at Virginia Tech university in the United States and mailed a film explaining his actions to U.S. broadcaster NBC.

Analysts say web monitoring for malicious intent would be difficult since such threats were often vague, hoaxes commonplace and police resources limited. Kinnunen suggested linking Internet background checks to new gun permits.

Google said in a statement the videos posted by the suspected gunmen on YouTube did not breach its 'zero tolerance policy for threats and incitement to violence'.

YouTube, which said it receives 13 hours of new content each minute, removes material largely through a system of 'community policing' if users themselves report inappropriate videos.

Saari's profile on YouTube included a link to another YouTube content provider, 'Lovehetar' whose listed interests included serial killers, mass murderers and the Columbine high school shooting in the United States in 1999.