Ilpo Tapio Larha (19 July 1968 in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

– 17 March 1994 in

Lahti Lahti (; sv, Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is the capital of the region of Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme) and its growing region is one of the main economic hubs of Finland. Lahti is situated on a bay at the southern e ...

) was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

. Larha became known through the contract murder of a 77-year-old crippled businessman Wilhelm Högsten in Jollas, a suburb of

, on 24 April 1992. Larha was hired by Högsten's 47-year-old son Fred. Larha, Högsten and 31-year-old businessman Hannu Ratia, who drove Larha to the site of the murder, were sentenced to

life in prison Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

. On 25 February 1994 Larha escaped from a Helsinki state prison with 37-year-old Kullervo Haikas, alias Pertti Ruokolainen, who had been serving a 13-year sentence for drug crimes. On 1 March, Larha robbed a

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

Pitäjänmäki Pitäjänmäki () is a district located on the westernmost district of Helsinki, Finland, near the border with Espoo. There are many IT and machine manufacturing companies in the area, especially around the Valimo railway station. Such compani ...

, nearly killing a

cashier A retail cashier or simply a cashier is a person who handles the cash register at various locations such as the point of sale in a retail store. The most common use of the title is in the retail industry, but this job title is also used in the ...

. After this, Larha and Haikas barricaded themselves with two hostages in an

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

. Police discovered them on 15 March. This started a

siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition warfare, attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity con ...

that lasted for 55 hours. During the siege, Larha called Radio 99's live broadcast. He said among other things, that there was C-4 in the house, which is a plastic explosive stronger than dynamite, that he had been trained to operate as a pioneer during his conscription service, and that he would be able to blow up the whole house if the police tried to enter. In the midst of a siege, Larha fell asleep then Haikas and the hostages escaped through the balcony, Larha committed suicide on 17 March 1994, shooting himself simultaneously with two handguns. Finland's president

Tarja Halonen Tarja Kaarina Halonen (; born 24 December 1943) is a Finnish politician who served as the 11th president of Finland, and the first woman to hold the position, from 2000 to 2012. She first rose to prominence as a lawyer with the Central Organisati ...

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

ed Hannu Ratia in the end of 2005 and Fred Högsten in May 2006. In the summer of 2022, Petri Kotwica began filming a television series about Larha called Piiritys (The Siege). Elias Salonen plays the role of Larha. Piiritys starts on the

Ruutu+ Nelonen Media is a Finnish commercial broadcasting company owned by Sanoma Media Finland, which is a part of Sanoma group. History Operations Free-to-air television channels * Nelonen (and high definition simulcast channel Nelonen HD) * Jim * ...

streaming service on Friday, January 6, 2023.

External links

Punainen Lanka (Red Yarn) 27 November 2001: Police psychologist Lasse Nurmi speaks about Ilpo Larha
1968 births 1994 suicides 1994 deaths 20th-century Finnish criminals Finnish male criminals Criminals from Helsinki Suicides by firearm in Finland Recipients of Finnish presidential pardons Finnish escapees Escapees from Finnish detention Finnish people convicted of murder People convicted of murder by Finland Finnish prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Finland Multiple gunshot suicides {{finland-bio-stub