About

 

Anneli Auer, a victim of injustice and persecution in Finland, – a country that prides itself to be the least corrupt in the world. Instead of receiving a fair trial, she received a trial by the media. Finally, on 18.12.2015 she was declared innocent for the murder of her husband by Finland’s Supreme Court. Her fight for justice continues, as her wrongful conviction for CSA remains to be overturned.

In this blog, articles will be published in English and Finnish. See the relevant language category on the right hand side.

BREAKING !!!

Anneli Auer’s CSA case appeal has been handed second time to Finland’s Supreme Court on Friday 24.02.2023.

All her children have retracted their horror stories against their mother Anneli, and my brother Jens Kukka. They have come out admitting that all stories were lies prompted by their uncle and his wife. The children were rewarded each time they came up with a wild story.

Stay tuned. More will be revealed soon.

 

Watch Emergency Call – A Murder Mystery documentary film about Anneli’s case (with English subtitles).

Only available as a DVD for the moment.

 

ANNELI AUER – BACKGROUND

Anneli Auer is a widower mother of four beautiful children. Her husband Jukka Lahti was brutally murdered at their family home in December 2006. The high profile case is known in Finland as the Ulvila murder case.

Someone came through a glass door in the middle of the night, and killed her husband while she was making an emergency phone call. Her eldest daughter, then nine year’s old, saw the killer leave their home. The mother had been stabbed by the intruder through her breast, so that her lung collapsed.

This horrible incident changed the lives of this young family forever. Almost two years after the murder, the local Satakunta police in Pori, changed their investigating officer, because they still had not been able to find the murderer after taking over 700 male DNA samples, and wrongfully arresting a local man for a week. In June 2013, nearly seven years after the murder, it was revealed that the police had contaminated the DNA sample that had been found in the murder scene. It may well be that the murderer escaped justice, because of the blunder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The newly appointed investigating officer in 2008, Pauli Kuusiranta, had only one line of investigation; the widower mother must have been the perpetrator. The police decided to introduce an undercover officer to the widower’s life as a new prospective boyfriend. He found nothing incriminating, and reported back that Anneli Auer was a devoted good mother to her children.

FIRST A GUILTY VERDICT, THEN ACQUITTAL

The District Court of Satakunta found Anneli Auer guilty of the murder in June 2010, but the verdict was not unanimous. One of the judges felt that there was not enough evidence to convict the defendant. In May 2011 the Vaasa Appeals Court suddenly acquitted and released her. However, the prosecutors Jarmo Valkama and Kalle Kulmala were not happy. It appears that some other people were not happy either, mainly Anneli’s brother and his wife. At this point they were receiving €9.000/month to look after Anneli’s three youngest children. The oldest daughter had moved to a children’s home, as she could not bare living with her uncle.

Only two months after Anneli’s release, the prosecutors received miraculously “new evidence” from Anneli’s brother, who has had the custody of her youngest three children with his wife since Anneli was first sent to prison. It turned out that the youngest children, now 7, 9 and 12 years old, were telling horror stories about their mother and their older sister to their uncle, and his wife.

Suddenly, and so very conveniently for the prosecutors, the children had lots of horrible memories of events at home, that had allegedly taken place over five years ago when they were only 2, 4 and 7 years old, or even younger. These youngest three children stayed in their bedroom behind closed doors, when the horrific murder took place at their home five years earlier. Now they seemed to know, and remember, in detail what was going on that unfortunate night.

These traumatised children had already lost their farther, – and then their mother two year’s later , when she was wrongly arrested, and sentenced for the murder. Their older sister had moved to a children’s home by herself, as she got constantly blamed for everything at their new foster home. Also Anneli was blamed to the youngest three, who by now must have been very afraid of their mother, the infamous “hostess of the house of horrors” (the way Anneli was portrayed in the media). It must have been a big shock for the children to hear that their mother was suddenly out of jail in 2011, and that they would have to move back home with her. In their eyes mummy had killed their farther, and had been put into prison for life by the police, – “who is never wrong in Finland”. (Finns’ trust in the police is the highest in Europe).

No one would believe the children’s horror stories of Satanic rituals and animal torture, that apparently took place every Sunday in their home (well, the prosecutor Valkama obviously did!). Much more serious material was required from the children by the prosecution. This was produced by using dubious interviewing methods with leading questions companied with encouraging and affirming comments. After some couching the children started telling that they had also been raped by their mother, and her ex-boyfriend. Both were arrested in September 2011, and wrongly convicted for long sentences in June 2012 for child sex abuse.

The Ulvila murder case has become a matter of reputation and prestige for the Pori police and the prosecutors. The newly appointed investigating officer Pauli Kuusiranta had boasted in the press that no homicide cases had been unsolved since the war time in Pori. He also boasted that the case was solved long before it had even been heard in the District Court.

Finland’s National Police Commissioner (2008 – 2015), Mikko Paatero, also from Satakunta area in Finland, had personally intervened in the Ulvila murder investigation in 2008, preventing it from being transferred to Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (KRP). Winning the high profile case, by what ever means, was their only concern. Justice and solving the murder was irrelevant.

In Finland corruption exists in the form of networks of powerful people who are, for example, members of the Free Masons, religious sects, or a political party. It is hidden, structural corruption, that goes undetected, because there is no system in place, and people’s high level of trust is easy to exploit.

In the Ulvila murder case, all the main players responsible for sending an innocent mother of four children to prison, and for her then to lose her youngest children, have been members, or supporters of The National Coalition Party ( = Kokoomus in Finnish). Anneli Auer’s fight for justice had become political.

 

GROSS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE – THE CHILD SEX ABUSE CASE

The Appeals Court hearings for the false child sex abuse allegations started on 28 January 2013 behind closed doors, and ended on 17 April 2013. The verdict was given given on 27 June 2013. It was a devastating miscarriage of justice. Both lawyers for the defendants had said that they had been able to prove the innocence of the accused, but the judges ignored this and increased Anneli Auer’s sentence by six months. (She got 7,5 years, and the Helsinki taxi driver 10 years). Both appealed to the Supreme Court. The Appeals Court ruling was based on the prosecutor’s (secret) expert witness’ statements, and the concept of “general life experience”.

The expert witness’ statements of Finland’s most reputable academics of the field were completely ignored, as they were accused of “working for the defence”. The prosecutor’s own star expert witness was a deeply religious gynaecologist Minna Joki-Erkkilä, who actually does work for the police. She had experienced a strong religious calling after her own daughter was brutally murdered six months before Anneli’s children’s stories were presented to her by the police. A missing teenage girl, Karoliina Kesti, was found drowned in a lake behind her home during that same period, so one must question her mental state, and the ability in that period to carry out her work.

Minna Joki-Erkkilä examined Anneli’s children with UV light observing that all the daughters were virgins. This did not mean anything to her, because apparently hymens grow back, and the possibility that crime has taken place could never be ruled out, even if there was no evidence. Minna Joki-Erkkilä examined the children’s entire bodies with a brand new UV lamp developed in Finland (but not tested, nor registered for medical use). It is unclear whether her method is scientifically valid, or whether a gynaecologist can be an expert witness in dermatology, finding numerous “healed scratch marks”, invisible for the naked eye. In fact, the findings were not visible in the photographs either, so the police had to draw them using Photoshop, or similar. According to her these “findings” were scars, and therefore evidence of abuse, and Satanic rituals. Dr. Joki-Erkkilä was even able to name the perpetrators in her statement to the police. How these photographs were accepted as evidence by the judges, we can only guess.

 

2013, A NEW ROUND OF MURDER TRIALS FOR ANNELI

During 2013 Anneli Auer had to endure another round of the Ulvila murder trial, too. This was the third time she’s was tried for the murder. Her fate was again in the hands of three local District Court judges, who were to decide whether she murdered her husband, or not. One of the judges, Annette Santamaa, was from Ulvila, and she knew personally prosecutor Jarmo Valkama who lived in the same neighbourhood. She also knows the former interior minister Anne Holmlund (also from Ulvila) from National Coalition Party political circles, who had also interfered in the case when a local man had been arrested for the murder. Needless to say, Annette Santamaa found Anneli guilty of murder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The prosecutor Valkama had managed to persuade the Supreme Court in May 2012 that “new evidence” provided by Anneli’s brother regarding her three youngest children had to be presented in court. To the prosecutor, the children’s horror stories provided a motive for the murder. The horror stories included Satanic rituals, torturing and killing of animals, brutal violence against the children, their mother plotting the murder, rehearsing and executing it with the participation of their older sister, then 9 years old. The stories grew wilder and wilder each time the children were interviewed, culminating in horrific stories of rape and abuse. The Supreme Court decided to bounce the murder case back to square one, i.e. to the same local Satakunta District Court, so that the “new evidence” could be looked at.

The Satakunta District Court‘s new murder verdict was announced on 12 December 2013. Anneli Auer received again a life sentence by the judges voting 2-1. Again, one of the judges felt that it was not proved that there was no outsider assailant present when Anneli Auer made the emergency call.

Anneli’s youngest three children had told their uncle that their mother had pre-recorded the murder on a C-casette with their older sister, and played the tape back while on the phone, giving them more time to stage the murder scene, and getting rid of evidence before the ambulance and police arrived. In the previous murder trials the prosecutor had tried to prove that Anneli had murdered her husband during the emergency call, leaving his oldest daughter on the phone. The FBI examined the emergency call recording, but found no evidence of pre-recording.

The District Court’s new guilty verdict caused a heated public debate about the legal process that had lasted already five years, and cost millions of euros. The prosecutor changed his theory of the motive, and his theory of the chain of events, while the new murder trial was taking place. The Satanic ritual killing was watered down to mere domestic violence and shop lifting with the children, – of which there was no evidence either. In the end the District Court judges ignored the prosecutor’s “new evidence” provided by the child witnesses, and focussed on reassessing the old. This presents a problem, as there already is a prior verdict (acquitting Anneli) from the Appeals Court, based on the same old evidence.

To summarise, the “new evidence” extracted from Anneli Auer’s traumatised children was too unbelievable for the District Court judges to take seriously. The “new evidence” was ignored, and in this way the District Court’s new guilty verdict bypassed the authority of the Appeals Court prior murder judgement acquitting Anneli Auer. An other major contradiction is the fact that two courts in the alleged sex abuse case have already based their guilty verdicts on the same childrens’, same horror stories. It was done in secret trials behind closed doors.

The police and the the prosecutors kept repeating in the press for six months that the “new evidence” from Anneli’s children had nothing to do with the murder case. This turned out to be a complete lie, but it ensured two separate trials against Anneli, and a complete character assasination of the accused in the press.

Anneli Auer denies the charges made against her. Her battle for justice continues. She was acquitted a second time by the Appeals Court in February 2015 for the murder charges. The bloodthirsty prosecutors were not happy with the outcome, they appealed second time with “new evidence” to the Supreme Court. This time the “new evidence” was provided by an eager arm chair detective, a retired army wind pipe orchestra conductor called Raine Ampuja. He claimed that he can analyse the emergency call recording better than the FBI had done in the United States. The Supreme Court did not accept his analysis, and kept the Appeals Court judgement in place. Anneli Auer was finally fully acquitted of the murder charges on 18.12.2015.

It became clear that the prosecutors did not respect the verdicts that six Appeals Court judges had given in the case (five out of six ruled in favour for Anneli). The prosecutors did not stop persecuting Anneli Auer, they wanted to get her behind the bars for life, even though she had been found innocent. Anneli Auer lost her husband, three of her children, her reputation, her freedom, her savings, her business, her home and belongings during this process, whereas the prosecutors had unlimited resources and taxpayer’s millions to spend in their mission to win the case. After hearing the Supreme Court’s verdict, the disappointed Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen gave his condolences to the relatives of the victim, and defiantly declared that the law system should be changed in Finland.

In December 2017 the Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen got sacked from his job for nepotism. In a historic ruling, Finland’s Supreme Court sentenced the Prosecutor General Matti Nissinen to fines amounting to 1,720 euros for official misconduct. His role in persecuting an innocent mother of four children still needs to be investigated.

***

During the new murder trial in Pori in 2013, it was revealed that Anneli’s unemployed brother was receiving about € 9000 /month to look after her youngest children. He had purchased a €150 000 luxury cruiser, and a €50 000 car just before Anneli was acquitted by the Appeals Court back in 2011. He took the children to the sea to avoid letting Anneli to see them. During their long sea trip, he and his wife video recorded the children telling horror stories how their mother had murdered their dad together with their sister. The children used notes whilst telling their stories.

Anneli’s brother and his wife have estranged the fearful youngest children from their older sister, their mother, their grandmother and grandfather, and every relative. The children have no contact with anyone from their past.

***

This is how Anneli Auer’s eldest daughter spoke about her mother in 2014

Amanda17, is used to people having wild opinions about her mother.

– My mother is a really good mother. She is a really lovely person and the best mother, no matter what anyone else says.

Amanda’s mother is Anneli Auer. A while ago, Amanda, 17, was looking at her old childhood photos.

– We had a really wonderful family. Father worked quite long hours, but he usually always came home at night. Mother cleaned and cooked. We children played outside a lot, there were many friends of the same age in the neighborhood, Amanda recalls.

– We also took holiday trips, once or twice a year we went abroad. We usually vacationed in Spain, she chats.

When you look at and listen to Amanda, she is like any other 17-year-old girl. She is a kind, well-behaved girl who believes in the future and smiles delicately. Except when the conversation turns to the events of eight years ago.

– I wouldn’t want to bring that night back to my mind, because I would like to continue with my life.

So far, Amanda’s wish has not come true, as the father’s murder investigation has lasted eight years, half of her age.

When will this end?

Amanda’s childhood idyll ended when she was 9 years old. At that time, his father Jukka S. Lahti was murdered.

– That’s why I’m happy that I was able to keep my father for at least nine years. There were only two of my youngest siblings, Amanda reminds.

That series of events started Amanda’s hell on earth, during which her mother was alternately convicted and acquitted of murder charges and convicted again of sexual and assault crimes.

Every single time that the court has been held, Amanda has also had to remember the night of the murder in the courtroom or during police interrogations. Currently, Amanda has just given a witness statement in her mother’s most recent trial.

– I don’t even remember how many times I have been interviewed by the police. I have been a witness in court three times. I just hope that one day this will stop.

Peite-Seppo [undercover police officer called Seppo] in the family

After her father’s death, Amanda had time to live a normal family life for three years. After the father’s death, despite everything, the family’s everyday life gradually began to go smoothly. The mother and the children had moved to a new home, and Amanda continued in the third grade.

You couldn’t call that life normal, because the boyfriend candidate hanging around the mother was an undercover police officer whose purpose was to extract information about the family. At the same time, the police were sitting in a van parked outside the home with headphones on. Auer’s family of four children was wiretapped.

However, Amanda found out about these facts only later.

– Just like in a Hollywood movie, she says now.

Seppo was part of their family life for about eight months, starting in March 2009. The family spent their free time together, among other things, at spas and beaches.

Amanda has nothing bad to say about Peite-Sepo’s personality.

– He seemed like a really nice guy.

However, Seppo had one special feature that Amanda had noticed. Seppo often asked about peculiar things. Seppo disappeared in the fall, at the same time Anneli Auer was arrested. It was later revealed that the undercover Sepo reports did not contain any allegations of murder or other accusations.

The eavesdropping was revealed

One day, when Amanda came home from school, there was a note written by her mother waiting on the kitchen table.

– It said something that she has gone somewhere for interrogation.

When the doorbell rang in the afternoon, 12-year-old Amanda didn’t open the door. She was alone in the apartment with his little brother.

– I didn’t want to open it to strangers, but my little brother did.

These people, unknown to the children, took Amanda and her brother, who is two years younger, to a child welfare reception home.

– The younger siblings had already been taken directly from school and kindergarten. We weren’t told why and we had no idea what was going on, Amanda recalls.

During those times, Amanda was also interrogated. At that time, she learned that listening devices had been installed in the family’s home.

– It seemed so comical, how the police care about our private lives. What we have eaten, what I have done with my friends. I had a lot of friends, and all those stories went straight to the police. And these private matters were not even related to the murder, so what right did the police have to hear about them, Amanda wonders.

12-year-old Amanda was held accountable for internal family conversations alone, without a lawyer or guardian’s permission. It wasn’t until 2011 that a lawyer was arranged for Amanda.

“The police lied”

For a young girl, police interrogations have always been stressful situations, and they have not passed without tears.

– I am bitter about the fact that the police lied to my face when I was 12 years old. They said no one could have gone through that door. I myself had seen that figure leave the doorway. Later it was concluded that it was possible to exit from there.

When after a few weeks the mother was finally able to meet the children at the reception home, Amanda thought that the meeting would be the last for a long time.

– I had no idea what would happen next. I asked my mother if I would see her before I was of age.

Amanda and her three siblings were placed in a children’s home until a new home was found for them at Amanda’s uncle. Amanda lived with her uncle for only two months, as she felt there were too many conflicts in the family. Finally, Amanda announced her desire to move away from the uncle’s house. A new home was found in a small group home, where she still lives. Three younger siblings stayed with the uncle.

Dreams were shattered

When her mother was first convicted of murder, Amanda describes her feelings as “absolutely terrible”.

– But when there have been so many of those judgments, I can’t say if one time was worse than another. In general, every time mother has received a sentence, the feeling has been just as terrible.

– But I remember that in the spring of 2011, I had an incredibly good feeling when my mother got away.

At that time, the Court of Appeal of Vaasa acquitted Anneli Auer of murder charges. Amanda began to dream about the family’s future together.

– Since I was still in care, I was initially able to spend the weekends with my mother. In autumn, it was planned to start the extended Weekend Holidays from Friday to Monday.

Just when the first extended weekend was supposed to start on Friday, the mother was arrested on suspicion of gross sexual crimes.

– That autumn and winter was absolutely terrible, the most terrible time I can remember. Father’s death was terrible, and this was even more so.

In court again

Last summer, Anneli Auer was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison at the Turku Court of Appeal in a sex crime case. At the same time, the investigation of the old murder charges were started from the beginning.

The court has again asked what 9-year-old Amanda saw eight years ago. The most recent hearing took place for the first time in a public trial, but it was still continued without an audience. In total, Amanda’s hearing lasted two and a half hours.

– I am sure of what I saw then, the perpetrator left from the broken glassed door of the fireplace room. It’s really frustrating to go to court when they don’t believe me. My words are of no use.

In the midst of all this, Amanda tries to live a normal life. She is currently studying a double degree, the goal is to graduate both as a high school student and in the commercial field.

– I’m also planning further studies, but if I can’t continue my studies right away, then I’ll take a gap year.

– Next year I will turn 18, then I will move to my own apartment.

Mother’s reputation

Amanda’s friends know who her mother is.

– When I changed to a new school, one weekend someone found out and told everyone. My friends had had time to get to know me before this information. When they heard about it, they asked me if it was true. I said it was true, but it didn’t affect our friendship.

The fact that people behave like this is offensive to Amanda.

– On the other hand, if I myself lived in a normal family, maybe I would be the same.

Although half of Amanda’s life has been more or less spent dealing with the events of the night of her father’s murder, according to her own words, she is able to live a normal student life.

– When there are stories in the newspapers or these lawsuits, I immediately start thinking about the events. Of course these things weigh me down, but I can put them aside from time to time and live normally.

Fear of the police

He doesn’t need a therapist and doesn’t suffer from sleeping problems any more.

– I have a pretty big room with a balcony. I’m not afraid that, for example, someone would come through the balcony door at night.

Instead, one thing puts Amanda in such a state of fear that the spirit does not want to pass. It’s the police.

– The biggest traumas for me have been from when the police have come to pick me up, and from everything that has happened with the police.

– For example, in kindergarten, everyone at school saw when I was picked up from school in the middle of the day, Amanda says.

At that time, the police took her against her will for a medical examination, when the mother was suspected of these new crimes.

A few weeks ago, a police car came to the yard of Amanda’s home. The situation had nothing to do with Amanda.

– I had a terrible panic. I couldn’t breathe and just cried. I don’t have any good memories of the police and those interrogations.

The best mom

Amanda characterizes her relationship with her mother as good.

– We have a plexiglass meeting every other week and a family meeting once a month, he says about the prison visits.

Amanda is also used to the fact that people have wild opinions about her mother.

– My mother is a really good mother. She is a really lovely person and the best mother, no matter what anyone else says.

At the moment, what worries Amanda the most is the situation of her siblings. He hasn’t seen them in over three years.

– I hope that in three years at the latest, my brother will contact me. He will be 18 years old then.

Amanda sent a letter to her siblings in the winter. She was informed that they did not wish to receive it. After that, Amanda was informed about a contact restriction, which has not been confirmed in writing.

– I’m not angry or bitter with them, I’d just like to see that they’re all right.

– We were very close, and in the children’s home we were always together. We didn’t even fight as much as, for example, the sisters of my other friends.

Amanda no longer dreams of the time after her mother’s release.

– I don’t expect anything anymore. Of course, I hope that the whole thing will work out and we can live a normal life.

– I haven’t completely lost hope.

Amanda herself was willing to give an interview because she felt this was her only way to tell about her own feelings. Permission was sought from his mother and lawyer. During the interview, Amanda’s guardian was also present.

Source (translated from Finnish):

https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/13a9cf33-ac7a-49b2-b125-c1fe8f79f2d7

 

 

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Anneli Auer on neljän lapsen yksinhuoltaja leskiäiti, joka istui Suomessa syyttömänä toistamiseen vankilassa. Anneli Auer on koulutukseltaan ekonomi ja ammatiltaan yksityisyrittäjä.

Tässä blogissa käsitellään sitä miten syytön ihminen on joutunut viranomaisten vainon uhriksi maassa, joka ylpeilee korruptoitumattomuudellaan.

Tilaa Annelin kirja Murhalesken muistelmat

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