Main Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat leads with the story of a hair that led to the identification of an Australian jihadist, who was involved in the 2012 kidnapping of Finnish couple Atte and Leila Kaleva in Yemen. The Finnish couple along with an Austrian were held hostage for 4 months before their release in May 2013. While in captivity, Atte Kaleva, a Finnish soldier on leave studying Arabic in Yemen for his thesis on extreme Islamism, and his wife, a reservist, noticed that one of their captors spoke English and had long hair that he tucked under his scarf. When this captor later lent them a book to read, the couple discovered one long hair trapped between the pages, which they decided to keep. "We gave half of the hair to the Austrians and later the other half to the Finns," Atte Kaleva told Helsingin Sanomat.
Analysis of the hair revealed that it belonged to an Australian jihadist named Christopher Havard, who was killed almost a year ago on November 19 in Yemen by a drone-fired missile.
Who paid for the Kalevas' release remains unclear, writes Helsingin Sanomat. Last summer the New York Times reported that between 2012-2013 al-Qaeda received more than 15 million euros for 4 kidnappings in the Arabian Peninsula including the Kalevas, whose release was paid for by Qatar and Oman. This claim has not been confirmed.
Another story that receives play in the morning papers is Tuesday's brief visit to Helsinki by Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the Russian State Duma committee on Foreign Affairs. "Russia is not threatening any country in Europe," is the Helsingin Sanomat headline for the interview with Pushkov, in which he says there is no threat of Cold War between Russia and Europe. When asked to comment on Finnish President Sauli Niinistö's recent comments about "a new type of Cold War," Pushkov replied: "President Putin has not said that we are in a new Cold War.... But I do believe that we are in a situation with the US that is reminiscent of the Cold War." (Tuesday was also the day the European Union began looking at further sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine conflict.)
Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat played Russian-European relations from a different angle with the cover line: "Estonia and Latvia have reason to be scared," a quote from President Putin advisor Sergey Markov, who gave an interview in Moscow to the correspondent for Swedish broadcaster SVT in which he reportedly said: "Sweden doesn't have to be scared. Latvia and Estonia, on the other hand, have all the reason to be scared. If a war starts, it's possible that not much of these countries will be left." Both Latvia and Estonia are home to many Russians.
Markov is known for his strong opinions, writes Ilta-Sanomat. In June he was quoted as saying: "If Finland wants to join NATO, it should first think hard. Do you want to be part of starting a Third World War? Anti-semiticism started the Second World War, Russophobia could start the Third World War," Markov told Finnish Swedish-language daily broadsheet Hufvudstadsbladet.
Tabloid Iltalehti features a cover story with the headline, "The Kremlin's trusted man Pushkov: Countries are being driven into NATO by fear." In the Iltalehti interview, Pushkov echoes the sentiments expressed in the Helsingin Sanomat article and says Western Europe's fears about Russia's security policy are "political speculation" fuelled by the Ukraine crisis. Pushkov then goes onto underline that the Ukraine crisis is taking place on the border of Ukraine and Russia:"There is not any kind of threat from Russia toward Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia."
