Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part V – A Man With a Conviction...

Series index:

  1. EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part I – More Captured Delegates?
  2. EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part II – Old Wine in New Bottles...
  3. EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part III – Introducing the Finnish “Facilitator”
  4. EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part IV – Martti Enäjärvi and His “Good Brother” Networks
  5. You are here ☞ A Man With a Conviction...


Martti Enäjärvi in Helsinki District Court
Martti Enäjärvi in Helsinki District Court in October 2011 on charges of credit card fraud.



Summary: Corrupt EPO delegate, an enabler of Benoît Battistelli and associate of António Campinos, in his moments of public shame (and a belated slap on the wrist)

As we saw in the last part, Martti Enäjärvi had a close shave with the Finnish public prosecutor during the early 2000s when he was facing allegations of abuse of office and breach of duty due to suspected misuse of an official car and official funds.



"By the close of the decade Enäjärvi's fondness for high living at the expense of the tax-payer finally caught up with him."Not for the first time, he managed to wriggle off the hook and the Finnish tax-payers were left to pick up the tab for his extravagances.

But this wasn't the end of the story. By the close of the decade Enäjärvi's fondness for high living at the expense of the tax-payer finally caught up with him.

At the beginning of May 2010, the report of an official government audit of the PRH was published. [PDF]

The audit report noted certain irregularities in the use of an official credit card and the PRH was instructed to take corrective action.

"At that point in time, Enäjärvi was 68 so there was no difficulty in massaging the PR to make it look like a normal retirement."By mid-August 2010, Finnish media was reporting that a new director of the PRH had been appointed and that "The current Director General of the Office, Martti Enäjärvi, will retire".

At that point in time, Enäjärvi was 68 so there was no difficulty in massaging the PR to make it look like a normal retirement.

The real story behind Enäjärvi's "retirement" only started to emerge the following year when reports appeared in the Finnish press in March 2011 stating that the former Director-General of the PRH was under suspicion of financial fraud. [PDF]

"The total amount involved was reported to be of the order of € 50,000."Some months later on 26 October 2011, Enäjärvi appeared in the dock at the District Court of Helsinki [PDF] facing charges of repeated misuse of his official credit card over a period of five years between 2005 and 2010. The total amount involved was reported to be of the order of € 50,000.

It was also reported in the Finnish media, that the preliminary investigation showed that many of the cash withdrawals [PDF] had been from ATMs on Kaisaniemenkatu and Mikonkatu, which are streets in the vicinity of the Helsinki Grand Casino.

Helsinki Grand Casino
Many of Enäjärvi's cash withdrawals took place in close proximity to the Helsinki Grand Casino.



The authorising officer at the PRH, Eero Mantere, was also put on trial alongside Enäjärvi under suspicion of having aided and abetted the Director-General in his irregular use of the credit card.

However, Mantere told the court that since 2006 he had been trying unsuccessfully to limit Enäjärvi's cash withdrawals. He said that he had issued repeated warnings to Enäjärvi and even lowered his weekly spending limit to € 500 following the abuses.

Enäjärvi's reaction was to override Mantere's intervention and restore the spending limit to €€ 3,000.

Eero Mantere
Eero Mantere was charged as a suspected accomplice of Enäjärvi, but he was ultimately acquitted by the court.



Enäjärvi tried to justify his insatiable thirst for cash on the grounds that he frequently had to travel abroad and thus needed to carry cash for unexpected expenses.

In his statements to the court he explained that there were many trips, more than twenty a year, which were mainly to European countries, in connection with WIPO, EUIPO and EPO matters.

According to the court, there was no reason to carry cash for such trips:

"Given the long experience of Mr Enäjärvi's official career, it is not plausible that he could have inadvertently overestimated the costs and charges incurred each year by a wide margin."


On 2 December 2011, the court handed down its judgment in the case: Enäjärvi was convicted [PDF] and Mantere was acquitted. [PDF]

All in all, Enäjärvi got off relatively lightly because he escaped with a fine of €€ 8,000 (described in the local newspaper reports as a "heavy fine" [PDF]).

The sentence was upheld [PDF] by the appeal court a year later in December 2012.

"And so it was that Martti Enäjärvi's long career at the top of the Finnish PRH ended with the ignominy of a conviction as a credit-card fraudster."In March 2013, it was reported that Enjärävi had been denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. [PDF]

And so it was that Martti Enäjärvi's long career at the top of the Finnish PRH ended with the ignominy of a conviction as a credit-card fraudster.

Enäjärvi's departure from the PRH in August 2010 came shortly after Battistelli's inauguration as President of EPO on 1 July of the same year.

Enäjärvi didn't manage to stick around on the EPO's Administrative Council for long enough to be able to participate in the success of his "good brother" from the French INPI.

"...Enäjärvi appears to have acted as the "facilitator" that helped to open doors for Battistelli in the Baltic region."However, the available information suggests that he played a significant behind-the scenes role in Battistelli's election to the top position at the EPO in 2009/2010.

More specifically, Enäjärvi appears to have acted as the "facilitator" that helped to open doors for Battistelli in the Baltic region.

We will examine this little-known chapter of EPO history in more detail in the upcoming parts.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
 
Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025