Mikael Storsjö

The prosecutor had stated that he shall appeal the decision and the case may yet continue in the Hovrätt, that is, The Court of Appeals. In June 2012, it reversed the lower court's decision and handed down a four-month suspended sentence, ruling that the Chechens were not in danger. Storsjö plans to appeal to the Supreme Court of Finland.

In a court case that began on 24 March 2011 in the Vantaa Local Court, the prosecutor Mikko Sipila accused Storsjö altogether of three cases of arranging an illegal entry, of which one he considered to be a gross one. He demanded that Storsjö be given a jail sentence. The alleged crimes had taken place from 2007 to 2010. According to the prosecution, Storsjö had brought 22 Chechens from Turkey to Finland on three separate occasions, and 9 of these people had been minors. None of these people had carried travel documents that would have entitled them to enter Finland. The prosecution also deemed that even though Storsjö had not benefited from this activity financially, he had reaped benefits in other ways, such as gaining a reputation and the respect of certain circles.”

The court case concluded on 9 May 2011. Storsjö was acquitted of all charges. The court held that his activity had not been of criminal kind, but that there had been acceptable grounds for it. The judge referred to the same section of the law that Storsjö had cited in court. The judge considered that Storsjö’s grounds for his activity were credible: this was a case of humanitarian activity based on empathy. The judge considered that the Chechens really were in need of protection, since nearly all of them had already been awarded asylum in Finland. The judge also considered that Storsjö had not benefited personally from his activism; on the contrary, he had received various threats because of it.

In early June 2009, Storsjö declared that he had arranged the entry into Finland of around 50 Chechens who had been living in exile in Turkey. He said the Finnish Border Guard suspected him of arranging a gross illegal entry to Finland in April 2009.

Ukrainian authorities apprehended Storsjö in Odessa on 26 May 2008 because he was on the list of personae non gratae in the Russian Federation. Storsjö was released from jail on 28 May 2007 and the Ukrainian authorities had cause to review their practises concerning lists of personae non gratae.

Storsjö was a candidate for the Green League of Finland in Helsinki in the 2008 Finnish municipal elections. He received 106 votes and was not elected.

Storsjö said in May 2005 an interview with Turun Sanomat that he is collecting money through donations that anyone can make to an association called “Support for information service on the Caucasus”, from which moneys are directed to the support of Kavkaz Center. He did, however, admit that the moneys end up with Chechen rebels, among whom there are “elements that have tendencies towards terrorism.” The matter was first made public by Aamulehti, and Storsjö said that this was a false report, since no association called “Support for information service on the Caucasus” ever has existed. It is not possible to find out anything about this alleged association with the Google search engine, and no such association exists in the Finnish Register for Associations.

In Finland Storsjö became a public figure in October 2004, when the Lithuanian government banned the Kavkaz Center website, and Storsjö moved the website to his server in Finland. The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (FSIS) then confiscated his servers.

The Kavkaz Center website was closed in Lithuania in the autumn of 2004, on request by Russia, after the Beslan school hostage crisis, when the website had published a message from Shamil Basayev, in which he assumed responsibility for the attack.

Mikael Storsjö (born 22 December 1957) is a Finnish IT entrepreneur, journalist and non-governmental organization activist. He is a board member of FINROSFORUM. He is known for his clashes with the Finnish and Swedish authorities concerning the hosting of the Kavkaz Center's website on his servers. In 2011–2012, he has also been involved in a court case, in which he was found guilty of arranging illegal entry into Finland of 25 Chechens.