FILE: Members of the so-called "Soldiers of Odin" volunteer street patrol are pictured as they patrol through the streets of Drammen, Norway, on Sunday night, February 21, 2016.
HELSINKI - A Finnish court on Wednesday remanded in custody a well-known neo-Nazi leader suspected of killing a passer-by during an anti-immigration protest in Helsinki earlier this month.
Jesse Torniainen, 26, is accused of kicking 28-year-old passer-by Jimi Karttunen, who spat in the direction of the protesters, in the chest.
Karttunen fell and hit his head on the ground, dying a week later of a cerebral haemorrhage.
Torniainen, a central figure in the violent far-right Finnish Resistance Movement according to police, is suspected of assault and aggravated involuntary manslaughter.
The suspect, who has a long record of previous assaults and other crimes, publicly boasted about the attack on social media, until his victim died on September 16.
In court on Wednesday, Torniainen denied any responsibility in Karttunen's death.
Finnish politicians, including Prime Minister Juha Sipila, have condemned the attack.
Politically-motivated violence is rare in the Nordic country, but far-right groups have become more active since a record 32,500 migrants sought asylum there in 2015.
Last year, volunteer street patrols calling themselves the Soldiers of Odin, with links to neo-Nazis, appeared on the streets of several Finnish towns.
In 2013, members of the Finnish Resistance Movement stabbed and injured one person at the Jyvaskyla city library in central Finland, during the launch of a book entitled "The Far Right in Finland", written by young leftist politicians.
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