Rantanen calls for external review of Rinnekoti care home

Interior Minister Mari Rantanen says high-profile cases involving police use of force should be thoroughly investigated and that an external body should also assess the operations of the Rinnekoti care home, Yle reports.

Rantanen said she had discussed the issue with the national police commissioner. According to her, police seek to do their best in every use-of-force situation.

“We have around one million emergency assignments a year. Now there have been a few situations where a preliminary investigation is entirely appropriate. They will establish what happened and whether the police acted in accordance with all the relevant rules,” Rantanen said.

Yle interviewed Rantanen at the Finns Party parliamentary group’s summer meeting in Imatra.

Police conduct has come under repeated scrutiny in recent weeks. At a moped gathering in Tuusula on August 8, police forced a moped rider into a ditch. An officer is suspected of aggravated causing of injury, endangering traffic safety and dereliction of duty.

In another case, police pointed a weapon at a man who had opened the door of an unmarked police car. The national prosecutor is examining whether there is reason to suspect a crime.

Most recently, attention has focused on a use-of-force incident at the Rinnekoti residential care home in Espoo, where police used an electroshock weapon on a man in his fifties. The man later died in hospital.

Rantanen said a preliminary investigation into the Espoo case was appropriate. She also wants an external body to examine Rinnekoti’s operations.

“I find it slightly unusual that such a unit can produce its own report and conclude that its own actions were not problematic at all,” she said.

Rantanen does not currently see a need to tighten official guidance or amend legislation. That could change if the ongoing investigations reveal grounds for action.

Rantanen opposes moving the security intelligence service

Jukka Salovaara, the outgoing state secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, proposed this week that the Finnish Security Intelligence Service be transferred from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen of the National Coalition Party said she supported the idea.

Rantanen said she did not support the transfer.

“First, there should be some understanding of why such a transfer should be made, what it is intended to achieve and what problem it would solve,” she said.

Valtonen has justified the proposal by saying that the security intelligence service would no longer have to compete with the police for funding and that its work is at the centre of foreign policy leadership.

Rantanen said the service’s funding had been secured under the Ministry of the Interior during the current parliamentary term and that it had faced fewer cuts than other sectors.

She also rejected claims that the security intelligence service could not conduct foreign intelligence operations under the Ministry of the Interior.

According to Rantanen, the service’s key task is to use intelligence methods to gather information about threats to Finland’s security, and that work is already being carried out.

“The Finnish Security Intelligence Service is one of our security authorities. This should be viewed as a whole, so that it remains a security authority rather than becoming a political or diplomatic instrument,” Rantanen said.

She added that transferring the service would not be straightforward, partly because it would require extensive legislative changes.

“In my view, the Finnish Security Intelligence Service is working very well as a security authority under the Ministry of the Interior,” she said.

Rantanen expects the SDP to support intelligence legislation

The government has circulated several intelligence-related legislative proposals for comment during the summer. Their progress would require an amendment to the Constitution.

During its term, the government has sought to expand the powers of both the security intelligence service’s civilian intelligence operations and the police’s criminal intelligence operations.

Because the government wants to pass laws requiring constitutional amendments during the current parliamentary term, it needs support from the opposition.

The Social Democratic Party has said it will not support amending the Constitution under an expedited procedure. The party has also demanded that it first see concrete legislative proposals.

Now that the proposals have been published, Rantanen hopes the SDP will reconsider its position. She said the laws cannot be delayed until the next parliamentary term, citing organised crime and hybrid threats as reasons for urgency.