Posted on 01/19/2004 2:21:29 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The confessed killer of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh will undergo a psychiatric evaluation, a Swedish court ruled Monday as it rejected an emotional plea for his release.
The Stockholm district court said there was "convincing evidence" to back prosecutors' claims that Mijailo Mijailovic intended to kill Lindh when he knifed her Sept. 10.
But it postponed a verdict in the case for at least four weeks until after the psychiatric evaluation of Mijailovic, who said voices in his head told him to repeatedly stab the popular politician.
Psychiatric experts at Huddinge hospital outside Stockholm could start examining Mijailovic as soon as Tuesday. The screening will determine whether the 25-year-old Swede of Serbian origin is mentally fit to serve his sentence in prison. Otherwise he'll be sent to a psychiatric hospital.
"Mijailo Mijailovic is also a victim," defense lawyer Peter Althin said in his closing arguments, appealing for sympathy for his client's mental problems. "It's probably in order to shed a few tears also for him."
Althin blamed Swedish health authorities for the attack, saying it wouldn't have happened if Mijailovic had received the proper medication and psychiatric care.
Prosecutors argued Mijailovic should be convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
"The voice that Mijailovic refers to is his own," prosecutor Agneta Blidberg told the panel of two judges and three politically appointed jurors. "Nothing indicates that he was so seriously mentally disturbed that he didn't know what he was doing."
Mijailovic said he didn't wish to speak. He sat in silence during the hearing, his head tilted down toward a plain wooden table. Mijailovic confessed before the three-day trial that he stabbed Lindh as she was shopping, unguarded, at an upscale department store in downtown Stockholm. She died from her wounds a day later, her liver punctured and her left arm pierced through the bone.
The slaying shocked the nation and evoked painful memories of the 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme whose killer was never caught.
Experts said murder or manslaughter convictions were the only two possibilities for an intentional killing under Swedish law. Some said murder was the most likely outcome.
"If you can't prove a direct intent to kill, it's still possible to convict on grounds that he should have realized his actions would have a deadly outcome," Stockholm University Criminology professor Jerzy Sarnecki said.
Althin said the charge could be reduced to assault, if the screening found Mijailovic wasn't in control of his actions.
Mijailovic, who has three previous convictions, confessed to the attack on Lindh after being confronted with DNA evidence linking him to the knife used to kill her.
Lindh's blood also was found on the clothes he wore during the attack. Police found them hidden in a wooded area south of Stockholm.
An artist's impression of the District Court in Stockholm, Sweden, where the murder trial of Mijailo Mijailovic, the confessed killer of former Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was concluded with closing arguments Monday, Jan. 19, 2004. The bearded Mijailovic is seen sitting to the left of his lawyer Peter Althin in front of the jurors. To the left, centre, chief prosecutor Agneta Blidberg who asked the court to sentence Mijailovic to life in prison.
A court artist's drawing shows Swedish defendant Mijailo Mijailovic (C) and his lawyer Peter Althin (R) in court in Stockholm January 19, 2004.
Mijailo Mijailovic's defense lawyer Peter Althin talks to media outside the high security courtroom in the Stockholm Court House, January 19, 2004.
Murder, correct. Why the quotation marks?
Oh. OK then.
FMCDH
FMCDH
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