A man who knifed to death his ex-lover and gunned down four of her colleagues at a Finnish shopping mall before killing himself was pathologically possessive, investigating police said Wednesday. 'The actions were motivated by (Ibrahim) Shkupolli's jealousy towards his former girlfriend,' Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said in a statement on a preliminary investigation into the killing spree on New Year's Eve 2009. 'Pathological possessiveness caused problems due to which the woman attempted to get out of the relationship from time to time,' NBI said, adding that the relationship had begun in 1991. The ex-girlfriend had requested two restraining orders against Shkupolli, the first in 2003, which she later asked to have cancelled, and the second in 2009 after the couple had lived together for some time. According to the preliminary police probe, it seemed Shkupolli had spent the night prior to the killings at his former girlfriend's apartment despite the existing restraining order. On the morning of December 31, 2009, he stabbed her to death before going to a grocery store in Finland's second largest shopping mall where his ex-lover had worked and shooting four of her colleagues. 'All the victims died immediately,' NBI said, adding that a total of 10 shots had been fired in the mall in the Helsinki suburb of Espoo using a pistol that had been stolen from a gun shop in Norway in 1990. After the shopping mall rampage, Shkupolli drove his ex-girlfriend's car to his own home where he used the same gun to kill himself. Prior to the tragic events, Shkupolli, a 43-year-old Kosovo Albanian and a father of three, had not made his intent known to anyone, and he left no message of explanation for his actions, NBI said. Shkupolli had moved to Finland in 1990 after his requests for asylum in Sweden and Norway were turned down. His application for Finnish citizenship was also denied, and prior to the killings, he had been convicted for violence, property and firearm crimes in the Nordic country. The preliminary police probe into the killing spree, which reignited debate on gun control, becomes public on Thursday. Finland, with its long tradition of hunting, counts one of the largest per capita gun ownerships in the world. Debate about the large number of guns in the country first became a hot political topic following two school shootings in 2007 and 2008, which left a total of 18 pupils and staff dead as well as the two shooters. The Finnish parliament is currently debating changes to the gun law, and the next committee review of the proposal could come as early as June. 