Helsinki police have completed preliminary investigations of a case regarding racist messages sent to Finland's Lucia, Daniela Owusu.
Police said they suspect a total of three people of defamation in the case, and that all three cases have been forwarded to separate prosecutors for consideration of criminal charges, according to Svenska Yle, the national broadcaster's Swedish-language news unit.
Initially, there was just one suspect, and that case file was sent to a prosecutor in April.
Shortly after Owusu was chosen as Finland's Lucia last year, she became the target of a barrage of racist abuse.
Owusu's father is from Ghana while her mother is Finnish. She was the first non-white person to be selected as Finland's Lucia.
The annual event is organised by Folkhälsan, an NGO advocating social welfare and healthcare for Finland's Swedish-speaking minority.
As part of its annual Saint Lucia Day event on 13 December, a young woman is chosen to represent Lucia via a public vote. Then wearing a crown of candles, Lucia takes part in a ceremony at Helsinki's Lutheran Cathedral, followed by a parade through downtown Helsinki.
After her selection, Owusu said at the time that she wanted to be a role model for young people and show that anyone could become a Lucia, regardless of their background.
According to a Svenska Yle report last December, Owusu received more than 100 racist comments and private messages.
Speaking to Svenska Yle on Tuesday, Owusu said she thought it was good that the police managed to identify at least some of the people who sent the abusive messages.
"I was expecting that more would have been identified, but it is difficult to identify people on the internet. That's why I didn't have particularly high expectations," she said.
The lead investigator, Detective Inspector Juha-Matti Suominen did not agree to an interview with Svenska Yle about the case.
In an email, he said the case involved a routine investigation that was not problematic or difficult.
According to the Swedish-language news unit, Suominen refused to discuss why more people were not suspected of sending the deluge of messages.
The racist abuse received a good deal of attention in Finland, including from President Alexander Stubb, who called the attacks "shocking and unequivolcally wrong".
Before opening a preliminary investigation into the situation, police reviewed posts on the Finnish discussion forum Ylilauta and social media platform TikTok, managing to identify the three people who are now suspects in the case.
Owusu began receiving racist messages the same day she was selected to be Finland's Lucia, on 14 November. That evening, an article in newspaper Ilta-Sanomat about her selection triggered a flood of racist comments on the Ylilauta forum.
The day after Owusu was crowned on Saint Lucia Day in December, Folkhälsan made a public announcement that she had been targeted by racists.
Speaking in a programme on Yle's Swedish-language radio station Yle Vega this summer, Owusu recounted her ordeal, offering examples of the nature of the expletive- and hate-filled messages she received.
"'Get out of here, fucking gingerbread, fucking Muslim, fucking immigrant'," Owusu explained, according to Svenska Yle.
Edited to add Daniela Owusu's comments.
