A 25-year old Swede of Serbian origin was formally charged with the murder of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh yesterday, setting the stage for a trial to open early on Wednesday, officials said.
Mijailo Mijailovic had last week confessed to fatally stabbing Anna Lindh, one of the country's most popular politicians, in September 2003.
His lawyer claimed that the killing was a random act of violence, carried out without premeditation, but prosecutors said on Monday they had no doubt that Mijailovic wanted to kill Anna Lindh.
That left no alternative to a murder charge, which implies the intent to kill.
"One can see from the very violence, the power in his attack, that he intended to kill Anna Lindh," chief prosecutor Krister Peterson said in an interview on Swedish TV yesterday.
Lindh, who had been tipped as a future prime minister, was stabbed on September 10 while shopping for clothes in a Stockholm department store. Her death, the next day, sent shockwaves of grief and indignation through Sweden.
According to transcripts from police interrogations of Mijailovic released Monday, he confessed to the murder, but insisted that the crime had not been politically motivated.
"There was no motive, no political motive," he said, adding, "I had nothing against her personally."
Police, however, have stated that they believe Mijailovic was well aware that he was attacking Sweden's foreign minister.
"He knew that it was Anna Lindh whom he was attacking," chief investigator Leif Jennekvist said of Mijailovic on Swedish TV yesterday.
"He rushed up to her, he took out a knife and he stabbed her... in the middle of her body," he said.
The injuries he inflicted to her stomach, chest and arms were so severe that she died later in hospital.
Head prosecutor Agneta Blidberg released the formal indictment, covering 1,120 pages, less than a week after Mijailovic admitted to the killing during a police interrogation.
Eagerly awaited, the indictment confirmed reports that Mijailovic claims to have sought psychiatric help in the days leading up to the murder, but that he had not been permitted to see a specialist.
Transcripts from police interrogations of Mijailovic show that he claimed voices in his head had forced him to attack Lindh.
"One can't resist the voices, one can't manage to stand up to them. They are a real pain when then come," Mijailovic had said in his confession, according to the transcripts.
So, whose voice did he hear? "I don't know," he said. "I think it was Jesus, that he has chosen me."
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