Finnish police spoke to the gunman who killed ten people at a school in western Finland a day before he carried out the attack, because of a video he had posted on YouTube.
Finnish Interior Minister Anne Holmlund told a news conference police were alerted to a video the gunman had put on the Internet showing him wielding a handgun at a shooting range but were unable to get in touch with him immediately.
'Police reached him on Monday, 22 Sept, and asked him to be interviewed regarding the shooting video,' Minister Holmlund said.
She said the gunman, who has not yet been identified, had a temporary permit for a .22 calibre pistol but that the permit was not withdrawn.
'Police action will be examined in more detail later. The gunman had a temporary permit for a .22 calibre pistol, and he had received it in August 2008. It was his first gun.'
Several other people are believed to have been injured in the shooting incident at a catering college in the town of Kauhajoki, about 330km northwest of Helsinki.
It was reported this afternoon that the gunman - said to be around 20 years old - had died in hospital.
Local authorities said students and staff had been evacuated from the school, where a fire broke out but was later extinguished.
The school, which calls itself the 'Kauhajoki School of Hospitality', had 150 students and 40 teachers in 2005, according to the official website.
In November last year at Jokela high school, student Pekka-Eric Auvinen killed six fellow students, the school nurse and the principal after broadcasting his intent with a video on YouTube.
Mr Auvinen shot himself and died later of his injuries.
A search of YouTube yielded four videos filmed by a user who called himself Mr Saari, said he was 22 years old and lived in Kauhajoki.
The YouTube user's profile (left) included the words: 'And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war.'
The videos were taken offline soon after the shooting, but not before they were obtained by RTÉ.ie and made available to view.
Finland has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world, ranking third after the US and Yemen, according to a study last year by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
After the last shooting, the Finnish government took some steps to toughen gun regulations. Today it held an emergency meeting of governing coalition party leaders.
