School shootings timeline | Video: gunman on firing range

The images show a young man, dressed in black, firing his automatic pistol and delivering the chilling warning: “You will die next.”

The video posted on YouTube alerted police, who detained the student chef on Monday. But he walked free only to carry out his threat.

Matti Juhani Saari, 22, went on the rampage at the Kauhajoki School of Hospitality yesterday. Ninety minutes later, nine members of his catering college were dead. He then turned the gun on himself, to die later in hospital with his tenth victim, bringing a bloody end to Finland’s second college massacre in a year.

The Finns must look hard at their children

After a second gun massacre in a Finnish classroom this proud Nordic country must ask itself searching questions

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Police said Saari left two notes behind saying that he “hated mankind”.

Witnesses at the 150-student college described scenes of panic as Saari, dressed in black and wearing a ski mask, prowled the corridors firing at helpless students and staff.

Jukka Forsberg, the caretaker of the school, said. “I went to see and saw a guy leaving a big black bag in the corridor and going into classroom number three and closing the door. I looked through the window and he immediately shot at me. Then I called the emergency number. Thank God I was not hit. He fired at me but I was running zigzag. I ran for my life.”

“We have experienced a tragic day,” Matti Vanhanen, the Prime Minister, said at a press conference in Helsinki.

The attack brought back grim memories of a school massacre by a teenager near Helsinki last November, in which nine people were killed. Pekka-Eric Auvinen, an 18-year-old high school student, had posted a "massacre manifesto" on the video-sharing site in which he declared: "I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit."

But the revelation that the killer was questioned by police less than 24 hours before the spree is likely to prove especially painful.

Anne Holmlund, the Finnish Interior Minister, told reporters that police had questioned the man after being tipped off by the public about his YouTube videos in which he was seen firing a Walther P22 handgun but had no legal reason to detain him and decided not to withdraw his gun permit.

"The gunman had a temporary permit for a .22 calibre pistol, and he had received it in August 2008. It was his first gun," she said. "Police action will be examined in more detail later."

One of the video clips was apparently recorded in the town and posted on the internet last Friday.

After the Jokela killings the Finnish Government dropped its objection to a European Union directive setting a minimum age limit on firearm ownership, although ministers said that the decision was not linked to the Jokela shooting.

The country poured resources into identifying and counselling disenchanted young men. Last night politicians were wondering what more they could do.

A spokeswoman for the college said: “The institution had taken all the action. They had a multi-professional team of psychologists, social workers in the community . . . but we saw this kind of tragedy take place.”

With 1.6 million firearms in private hands, Finland has the world's third highest rate of gun ownership, behind only the United States and Yemen.

After last year’s rampage, the Government said that it would raise the minimum age for buying guns from 15 to 18, but yesterday Mr Vanhanen suggested a radical departure from the country’s gun culture. “It is not enough to talk about age limits or interviews. After two such tragic incidents we have to discus whether private people can be allowed to have handguns.”

Antti Rantakokko, the mayor of Kauhajoki, said that there were echoes of Jokela in Tuesday's incident. "On the internet there is some information, there are analogies to the Jokela case," he said.

He appeared to be referring to the YouTube page on which was posted four videos filmed by a user calling himself "Mr Saari". The videos, between 20 and 32 seconds long, show a man dressed in black or dark colours, firing at a shooting range with a Walther P22 handgun.

The killer – who last visited the site about an hour before the shootings started – posted under the username Wumpscut86 in homage to an "electro-industrial" DJ from Bavaria known as Wumpscut. He includes some of Wumpscut lyrics on his profile: "And suddenly there was war and the mothers they screamed. For revenge and reprisals for another war."

The same man also posted videos on other websites, including one where he points at the camera and declares, in English, "You will die next", before firing his weapon repeatedly.

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