**The man who shot dead his ex-girlfriend and four other people in Finland before killing himself seems to have targeted his victims, police say.**It did not seem coincidental the three men and two women killed by Ibrahim Shkupolli in the southern city of Espoo worked in the same shop, police said.
The 43-year-old shot dead four Prisma grocery shop staff in the Sello shopping centre on Thursday morning.
The body of his ex-girlfriend, another employee, was found in a flat nearby.
The woman had taken out a restraining order against Shkupolli, who had reportedly stalked her for years.
After killing her, Shkupolli returned to his own home and turned the gun on himself, police said.
Relatives of those killed and local residents have been mourning those killed in Finland’s third major shooting in the past two years.
Major manhunt
A preliminary investigation revealed Shkupoli’s method for killing his victims indicated deliberate planning, police said on Friday.
“We are sure that relationship issues such as jealousy or some other such relationship problems which go back several years are behind what has happened,” Tero Haapala, head of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said, cited by AFP news agency.
“That is definitely the main reason for the murder of the girlfriend, but we still don’t know for sure why he shot the other four.”
Two of the Prisma employees killed inside the shop were shot on the shop’s first floor, the other two on its second floor, police said earlier, giving the victims’ ages as 27, 40, 42 and 45.
The gunman - an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo who moved to Finland in 1990 - disappeared after the shopping centre shooting, prompting a major manhunt.
Employed by a warehousing company that organised deliveries to the Prisma shop, Shkupoli was reportedly also married to a woman of Albanian descent, with whom he had a family.
He had a previous conviction for causing bodily harm and had twice been fined for illegal possession of a handgun, in 2003 and 2007, local media reported.
There is a long tradition of hunting in Finland, which has vast areas of forest and wilderness, but until recently gun crime has been rare.
But two deadly shootings in recent years focused attention on gun laws in a country where young people were permitted to own and use a firearm at 15 years of age if they had parental consent.
In November 2007, an 18-year-old went on a gun rampage at his school in Tuusula, killing seven pupils and a teacher, before turning the gun on himself. He had posted a video warning of the attack on the internet.
Then, in September 2008, a 22-year-old trainee chef killed 10 people at a college before killing himself.
He, too, had put a video on the internet showing himself shooting a gun. After doing that he was interviewed by police, but they decided it was not sufficient reason to revoke his gun licence.
After the second attack, stricter rules on permits for pistols and revolvers were introduced.
Handgun permits would no longer be granted to first-time applicants, the interior ministry said.
Instead, they must train for at least a year at a gun club before being allowed to apply for a permit.
All applicants must also provide a note from a doctor about their mental health and sit an interview with police.
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