Marko Asser Hirsma (12 July 1965 – 20 October 2001) was a Finnish musician,

outlaw biker An outlaw motorcycle club, known colloquially as a biker club or club (in Australia), is a motorcycle subculture generally centered on the use of cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals that purpo ...

and

gangster A gangster (informally gangsta) is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''Organized crime, mob'' and the suffix ''wikt:-ster, -st ...

who served as the first national president of the

Bandidos Motorcycle Club The Bandidos Motorcycle Club, also known as the Bandido Nation, is an outlaw motorcycle club with a worldwide membership. Formed in San Leon, Texas, San Leon, Texas, in 1966, the Bandidos MC is estimated to have between 2,000 and 2,500 members and ...

in Finland.

Outlaw biker

Hirsma was the singer-bassist in the Backsliders, a rock band that, between 1985 and 1994, managed to release five studio albums and one cover album together with

Albert Järvinen Pekka "Albert" Johannes Järvinen (25 October 1950 – 24 March 1991) was a Finnish guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guit ...

under the name Flashbacksliders. The Backsliders' activities waned in the 1990s, when Hirsma became gradually more involved in gang activity. He was a member of the Overkill Motorcycle Club, which vied with the Iron Hog MC for the right to become a candidate for the

Hells Angels The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is an international outlaw motorcycle club founded in California whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells ...

' first Finnish chapter. During the power struggle, the Iron Hog president was severely beaten on 9 February 1993 and his club subsequently withdrew. This was followed by a high-profile police raid on Overkill's headquarters on 3 March 1993. A few weeks before Overkill became a probationary Hells Angels chapter in 1994, Hirsma was beaten at a Hells Angels party in Sweden where he was working as a bar tender. The reasons behind the beating are unknown. He resigned from the club and founded the Undertakers MC in August 1994. The Undertakers applied for membership in the

Bandidos Bandidos may refer to: * Bandidos (film), ''Bandidos'' (film), a 1967 Italian spaghetti western film * Bandidos Films, a Mexican film production house * Bandidos (TV series), ''Bandidos'' (TV series), a 2024 Mexican TV series See also

* Ba ...

and became a probationary chapter in August 1995 before being "patched over" in October 1996. Hirsma was appointed the Bandidos' national president.Jengiläisten riidat toivat Bandidosin Suomeen 1990-luvulla
Jarkko Sipilä,

MTV3 MTV3 (, ) is a Finnish commercial television channel owned and operated by the media company MTV Oy, originally launched on 13 August 1957 as a programming block, becoming its own channel on 1 January 1993. It had the biggest audience share ...

(12 May 2015) Between 1995 and 1997, the Bandidos and Hells Angels fought a turf war in Finland in connection with the wider

Nordic Biker War The Nordic Biker War was a gang war that began in January 1994 and continued until September 1997 in parts of Scandinavia and Finland, involving the Hells Angels and Bandidos outlaw motorcycle clubs. The conflict is also known as the Great Nordi ...

. On 27 September 1995, Hirsma was assaulted by members of the Hells Angels and Cannonball MC – a Hells Angels-affiliated club – outside a

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

courthouse where he was attending the trial of Kai Tapio Blom and Antti Tauno Tapani, two Bandidos convicted of an anti-tank rocket attack on the Hells Angels' clubhouse two months before. He was sentenced to over a year in prison in June 1996 for firearms offenses and the August 1995 theft of a Hells Angel's

colors Color (or colour in Commonwealth English; see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though color is not an inherent property of matter, color perception is related to an object's light absorpt ...

. Hirsma was sentenced to an additional nine months in prison on 12 July 1996 after being convicted of inciting a Bandidos underling to throw a grenade into the Hells Angels' clubhouse on 18 May 1996. The attack was carried out as retaliation for the murder of Bandidos vice-president Jarkko Kokko, who died on 17 March 1996, sixteen days after being shot by suspected Hells Angels members. In November 1996, Hirsma was attacked and beaten in Sörka Prison amidst a struggle for control of the prison drug trade fought between the Bandidos and a rival group. Hostilities between the Bandidos and Hells Angels came to an end in September 1997 when a truce between both groups was brokered. Since the end of the biker war, the once-rival clubs have operated in parallel rather than competing with each other.

Murder

After his release from prison, Hirsma's behavior grew more violent. His irrational behavior would later be believed to be the result of a fractured skull he suffered in prison. During 1999, the Bandidos in Finland came close to disbanding due to an internal feud concerning Hirsma's leadership. The club had just seven members at the time – four of whom were imprisoned – and reinforcements were required from Norway and Denmark. Hirsma was eventually expelled from the club after he criticized how the club was run in Europe during a Bandidos world meeting in the United States. He went on to reestablish the Undertakers and was also in contact with the

Outlaws An outlaw is a person living outside the law. Outlaws or The Outlaws may also refer to: Film and television Film * ''The Outlaws'' (1950 film), an Italian crime film * ''Outlaws'' (1985 film), a French film * ''The Outlaws'' (2017 film), a Sou ...

. Hirsma was subjected to continued violence by his former club; he was beaten and robbed of his motorcycle by Bandidos in Germany in the spring of 2000, and a Bandidos member strafed his home with submachine gun fire in the autumn of that year. On 20 October 2001, Hirsma was killed in front of his home in Helsinki during an exchange of gunfire with his former clubmates Kai Tapio Blom and Andrei Antoni Jensko, both recently paroled from prison. On 11 March 2002, Blom and Jesko were convicted of murdering Hirsma, attempting to murder his wife and endangering several bystanders including Hirsma's child; they were sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay Hirsma's widow and child a total of more than 50,000 euro in compensation for non-material damage.Bandidos-jengin ex-johtajan ampumisesta elinkautiset

(11 March 2002)

References

External links

Marko Hisrma
at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirsma, Marko 1965 births 2001 deaths 2001 murders in Europe 20th-century Finnish male singers 20th-century Finnish criminals Finnish male criminals Finnish rock singers Finnish bass guitarists Finnish gangsters Finnish prisoners and detainees Prisoners and detainees of Finland Finnish murder victims People murdered in Finland Murdered Bandidos Motorcycle Club members Murdered gangsters Deaths by firearm in Finland Singers from Helsinki Criminals from Helsinki Bandidos Motorcycle Club