Aleksanteri Kivimäki had time to be free with a permit for two weeks and one week on leave.
Fleeing the authorities for a week Alexander Kivimäki26, again participated in the Vastaamo trial for pretrial detention.
Kivimäki’s lawyer Peter Jaari briefly commented to the media before the start of the session that Kivimäki was always supposed to come to Tuesday’s session, whether he was incarcerated or not. He does not comment on where Kivimäki was found last Saturday. Kivimäki was wanted the previous Monday.
The trial started almost half an hour late due to prisoner transport. Kivimäki was brought to the scene from Vantaa prison.
At the beginning of the trial, he sat grave and expressionless, his eyes directed straight ahead. There was again plenty of media present.
Wanted
On Tuesday, February 27, the media was once again in abundance at the Vastaamo trial. Henri Kärkkäinen
Kivimäki, accused of serious crimes, was released from pretrial detention on February 5. The district court considered that there were no longer any conditions for keeping Kivimäki in custody.
He had been imprisoned for about a year on suspicion of crimes related to the Vastaamo data breach.
The prosecutors appealed the release decision of the Länsi-Uusimaa District Court immediately to the Helsinki Court of Appeal, which decided on Friday, February 16, that Kivimäki be re-imprisoned. However, he still did not report to the police the following Monday, and so the police issued a wanted notice for him.
In early February, Aleksanteri Kivimäki participated in the trial on a free foot. Matti Matikainen
Kivimäki messaged his lawyer and among other things For Helsingin Sanomat being in Espoo. The police finally caught him on Saturday at a private apartment in Helsinki.
On Tuesday, witnesses named by Kivimäki are scheduled to be heard in court. The trial has already lasted several months and is scheduled to end in early March.
The district court will give its verdict later.
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Counter data breach
Psychotherapy center Vastaamo’s patient data ended up in the hands of a hacker in November 2018.
In September-October 2020, money was successfully extorted from the victims. About 33,000 people’s information was leaked to the dark Tor network.
Aleksanteri Kivimäki is suspected of data breach and extortion. He was wanted and arrested in absentia on suspicion of crimes in October 2022. In February 2023, he was captured in France.
At first, the police had difficulty finding all the victims of data breach and extortion, but in August 2023, the police announced that they had succeeded in doing so thanks to an international request for legal assistance.
The prosecutor filed charges against Kivimäki in October 2023. The prosecutor demands a seven-year prison sentence for Kivimäki for aggravated data breach, attempted aggravated blackmail, 9,598 aggravated dissemination of information infringing private life, 21,316 attempted aggravated blackmail and 20 aggravated blackmail.
There are a total of 21,459 litigants, i.e. victims of acts according to the indictment, in the trial.
In April, Vastaamo’s CEO Ville Tapio was sentenced to a three-month suspended prison sentence for a data protection crime. The judgment is not legally binding, but has been appealed to the court.
Iltalehti exceptionally publishes the name of the accused before the district court’s decision based on the social significance of the Vastaamo data breach and the suspect’s serious criminal background.