Police have revealed that bullying was the motive behind a stabbing at a Finnish school last week.
A 16 year-old boy is being charged with attempted manslaughter after taking a knife to a classmate at the Koski school in Imatra, eastern Finland, on Valentine’s Day.
“Offensive use of language came to light, hurtful turns of phrase and speech,” inspector Jyrki Hänninen of the local police force said in a report by YLE.
Hänninen refused to disclose which child was being bullied, but confirmed that previous incidents between the two had not yet become physical. “Now we are primarily concentrating on investigating attempted manslaughter, not on who did the bullying, but on how such events came to pass,” he said.
The suspect has been detained in custody while the victim is recovering from upper body injuries in hospital. Police are continuing with the investigation and attempting to determine if the stabbing was premeditated.