The British man said he axed the 75-year-old to death out of self defence. (Image: Police handout)
A 32-year-old man has pleaded self-defence after appearing in court for hacking a pensioner to death with an axe at a court in .
The Briton, who has not been named in , said he killed the 75-year-old man at a flat in Seinajoki, western Finland, after being tied up and raped.
The two men reportedly met at a spa in Kauhava, near Helsinki, on July 27, the day after the 32-year-old Brit arrived in the country on a tour.
The 75-year-old paid for a hotel room where they spent the night, and CCTV from July 28 showed the pair buying a mobile phone and travelling to the pensioner’s home in Seinajoki, where the younger man did some gardening work, according to MailOnline.
Police believe the older man died between midnight and 2:14am on July 29, when the prosecution alleged that the 32-year-old hit his victim six times with an axe as he was lying in bed.
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The two men were spotted together on CCTV the day before the alleged attack. (Image: Police handout)
The Brit then reportedly fled the scene in the 75-year-old man’s car, which he abandoned a short drive away in a ditch outside Kyyjarvi – around a 90-minute drive from the flat – where investigators found it hours later.
He left the car and continued on foot after colliding with a deer that “appeared from out of nowhere”, according to WhatsApp messages seen by the court that were sent to a friend just before 6am on July 29.
“If the cops had come, I would have been screwed,” another message read.
The pensioner’s body was not found by authorities until a fortnight later, on August 14, after his relatives asked the police to carry out a wellness check.
The 32-year-old was quickly pinpointed as a suspect and was tracked down to a flat in eastern Finland days later on August 17, after fears that he had already left the country.
The British man told investigators that the 75-year-old had tied him up, raped him and threatened him with an axe, leaving him no option but to launch the vicious attack out of self-defence.
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He suggested that the older man had “made it clear” that he owed him a sexual favour after helping him to buy a phone the day before, something he refused before taking a nap.
“When I woke up, I was tied up with bandages,” the 32-year-old told South Ostrobothnia District Court. “I couldn’t move properly.”
He alleged that the man then raped him in a “horrible ordeal”. “When it was over, he rolled over next to me,” the Brit said. “Then he started snoring, and I decided to escape. I went to the kitchen and cut my ties there.”
He said the older man then appeared at the kitchen door with an axe and told him that no one would believe him if he tried to call the police.
“The man had an axe in his hand, and I had no choice but to defend myself,” he said. “The first blow was when I intended to hit him but not to kill him.”
The 32-year-old said he then “slipped”, and the axe fell from his hand, hitting the older man again. He told the court that the shock had caused him to panic and flee from the scene in his victim’s car.
The British cyclist is undergoing a mental health examination in a Finnish court (Image: Police handout)
Local news outlets reported that an axe was found in the Seinajoki flat, but only the pensioner’s DNA was found on it. A different axe, pictured attached to the tourist’s bike in photos taken by a local on July 27, has reportedly not been recovered.
The Brit denied bringing the axe on his cycling trip and is said to have offered conflicting accounts of where he disposed of it. He told officers that he was travelling around Europe on a fundraising drive for British charities and had planned to stop over in Finland to work at a friend’s husky farm.
His internet history also showed that he had searched for online reports of the crime weeks before the 75-year-old’s body was found.
The pensioner’s daughter told the court that she couldn’t imagine that her father would have been capable of the alleged offences due to his deteriorating health.
Law officials ordered a mental health examination for the Brit, after which the trial will resume. Prosecutors have demanded that he be handed a 10-year sentence if found guilty of murder.