Tuomioja's role in the Rusi leak

Turun Sanomat and Helsingin Sanomat had competing pieces on how confidential information about the Security Police's (Supo) investigation into Alpo Rusi's Stasi connections turned up in the media.

Turun Sanomat wrote (fi) that Erkki Tuomioja (Social Democratic Party), who was informed due to his position as Foreign Minister, told the late Antti Satuli, then the Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry, who in turn told the media. Tuomioja said (fi) that Satuli, who has since died, already knew about the investigation and that he had gotten the impression from his discussion with Nevala that Satuli should be informed.

When reporting on Turun Sanomat's reporting, Helsingin Sanomat reminded us (fi) that the state claimed during the autumn's Rusi trial that Satuli learned of the investigation from Foreign Ministry official Juhani Suomi (of Kekkonen biography fame), who had helped Supo in the investigation as an expert. Further, the court ruled that Satuli was legally entitled to the information due to his role as Suomi's boss.

Turun Sanomat had a nice scoop in theory, but the story seems like a bit of a dud in practice. Alternatively, Tuomioja was damned lucky that the person to whom he leaked the information not only knew about the investigation, but was supposed to know.