On October 7, 2005, Gustafsson was acquitted of all charges. The court explained the verdict as due to the prosecution evidence being inconclusive, failure to show Gustafsson had a motive appropriate to a crime of such extreme seriousness, and certainty about the facts now being impossible given the time that had elapsed.[1] The State of Finland paid him €44,900 for the mental suffering caused by the long remand time, but he was refused permission to sue Finnish newspapers for defamation.