. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prime Minister Göran Persson
Posted on 09/19/2003 5:48:22 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
Two story-lines going on: The murder suspect and the memorial ceremony. This is today's thread for articles, pictures, etc., for events in Sweden.
This first story deals primarily with the murder suspect:
Swedish prosecutor moves against key suspect in Lindh murder case
1 hour, 34 minutes ago
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedish prosecutors requested the continued detention of a suspect, arrested earlier this week in connection with the murder of foreign minister Anna Lindh, increasing the chances of his indictment.
Per Olof Svensson "is suspected of murder at NK, Hamngatan in Stockholm, on the 10th of September 2003," district court actuary Anita Andreasson told AFP.
Lindh died on September 11, a day after being stabbed in the NK department store in central Stockholm while shopping for clothes.
The prosecutor's request, announced 90 minutes before a midday legal deadline, increases the chances of Svensson being charged with the murder of Lindh, although prosecutors stressed that point had not yet been reached.
The degree of suspicion was still "low", Andreasson said.
Police, running DNA tests, had until Friday to present evidence to chief prosecutors Agneta Blidberg, who submitted the request, and Krister Petersson.
If the request is granted, Svensson, who has denied any involvement in the killing, can be held for up to another two weeks before police have to present fresh evidence to support its case.
The court will deliberate later Friday, but it was not clear when its decision would be announced.
Backing up their request, the prosecutors argued that Svensson might flee or destroy evidence if set free, stressing the "extreme importance that the suspect be held in detention pending further investigation of the crime", Andreasson said.
Police, who again interrogated Svensson overnight, were believed to pin their hopes on DNA testing, matching his samples with those found in blood and clothing left behind at the scene of the crime.
Preliminary DNA results came in Thursday, but police officials contacted by AFP on Friday declined to say whether they had been key to the prosecution's move.
A memorial service attended by well over 1,000 foreign and Swedish dignitaries, family and friends had meanwhile gotten under way for Lindh, a charismatic figure who embodied her country's ideals of democracy and human rights.
Lindh enjoyed equal popularity at home as on the world diplomatic stage, as was poignantly evident in speeches made by friends and colleagues.
"Few, very few events stop the clocks. One such event is the death of Anna Lindh," EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told the mourners.
"She loved the world, and was loved by the world," he said.
"We have lost her, that is the way it is. And that realization hurts so terribly much," Prime Minister Goeran Persson said.
World bids farewell to Sweden's Anna Lindh
1 hour, 51 minutes ago
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Anna Lindh's political, diplomatic and personal friends from Sweden and around the world bid an emotional farewell to the murdered foreign minister in a memorial service held in Stockholm.
Guests included British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whom Lindh once kept waiting during a meeting to take a call from her son, the German and French foreign ministers Joschka Fischer and Dominique de Villepin, EU Commission President Romano Prodi and a slew of other top diplomats.
Lindh died on September 11, a day after being stabbed in a department store in central Stockholm. On Friday, prosecutors asked to extend the detention of a suspect arrested earlier in the week in connection with the popular politician's murder.
The ceremony at Stockholm's City Hall gathered some 1,300 high-profile guests, as well as her family and close friends, a day ahead of her funeral which will be a strictly private affair.
On the main marble staircase at the front of the hall, a picture of a smiling Lindh clasping her hands in front of her face was placed on an easel. Blue delphinium flowers, Lindh's favourite colour, lined the staircase.
Two notable absences were UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was unable to attend because Hurricane Isabel shut down Washington airport before his plane could take off for the ceremony.
Swedish songstress Eva Dahlgren opened Friday's memorial service with a her song "An Angel in the Room", followed by a commemorative speech by Prime Minister Goeran Persson, who appointed Lindh foreign minister in 1998.
"Anna Lindh is no longer with us. That idea still feels so foreign, so difficult to accept. She lives on so strongly in our memories," he said.
"We have lost her, that is the way it is. And that realization hurts so terribly much."
Speaking before the ceremony on Swedish Radio, former British foreign secretary Robin Cook said he would remember Lindh for her "great warmth and personality".
"It's hard to believe that the great warmth she had is extinguished," he said, describing her as a "formidable politician" and "a voice for Europe".
Friday's 90-minute ceremony was to include other speeches by EU Commissioner Chris Patten and Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou as well as a performance by Swedish opera star Anne Sofie von Otter.
Amid scorching criticism that they failed to protect Anna Lindh, Swedish police have put on the biggest display of force in 17 years to guard the 1,300 high-profile guests at the memorial ceremony.
Security forces lined the streets and bridges of the capital, closed off streets and waterways near city hall, where the commemoration was to be held, and shut down air traffic over the Swedish capital for the day.
"We have very high security for this," police spokeswoman Stina Wessling told AFP Friday.
The visits -- which include Canada's Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and the South African foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma -- add a massive burden on security services. They have been attacked for failing to assign a bodyguard to Lindh, stabbed while shopping at the upmarket NK department store in Stockholm.
The head of Sweden's security police, Kurt Malmstroem, has admitted that the police's conclusion that Lindh did not need a bodyguard -- because they saw no threat to her person -- had been a "failure".
"That is the least one can say," Prime Minister Goeran Persson said tersely just hours after announcing her death, which brought back memories of the murder of prime minister Olof Palme in 1986, killed while walking home from a movie with his wife in downtown Stockholm.
According to press reports on Friday, Swedish police have tightened security around Crown Princess Victoria in recent days because of five psychologically disturbed men who have been stalking her.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prime Minister Göran Persson
CRIME AND REASON FOR ARREST
_ On probable grounds . . . .X Reasonably suspected for:
Murder at NK, Haning Street in Stockholm, September 10, 2003
("NK" = Nordiska Kompaniet, the department store where Lindh was attacked)
Lindh murder suspect pleads innocence; Sweden prepares day of mourning
Sweden and Europe Bid Farewell to Murdered Lindh
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
By Stephen Brown
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish politicians and European leaders bade an emotional farewell on Friday to murdered Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, grieving at the loss of a woman they said had brought joy and honor to politics.
Sweden's king and queen, Lindh's colleagues in the ruling Social Democrat party and European leaders paid homage at a non-religious memorial service in the imposing red brick City Hall where Nobel prizes are celebrated. The funeral will be private.
The speeches went well beyond the demands of etiquette. Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, fluent in Swedish from his time in exile here, asked "Why, why, why again?" was the 46-year-old minister and mother of two stabbed to death last week.
Her murder at the hands of a lone knife-wielding man has rekindled bitter memories of the unsolved assassination in 1986 of Prime Minister Olof Palme. Security around the ceremony was the tightest Stockholm has seen since Palme's funeral.
Police said their main suspect, a 35-year-old man arrested on Wednesday, would be kept in custody at the request of a public prosecutor. "Few events stop the clocks; one such event was the death of Anna Lindh, a woman who loved the world and was loved by the world," European External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told mourners in the hall decked with the flags of Sweden, the EU and the United Nations and with Social Democrat banners held by the party faithful.
BATTLED TYRANTS
Lindh, tipped as Sweden's next prime minister, was attacked on September 10 while out shopping and died the next day. She had no bodyguard, which is normal for Nordic politicians.
Lindh had campaigned for Sweden to join the European Union's single currency in the September 14 referendum -- a proposal that was defeated. But police have not linked her murder to the campaign.
Patten remembered her "battling away with tyrants and cynics and bullies" and said: "She turned politics into an honorable adventure. Anna was Sweden and we hope to our very marrow that Sweden will go on being Anna."
There were musical tributes from pop star Eva Dahlgren and opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter. Swedish politician Agnetha Gille said that "even the orchestra cried" and a Social Democrat women's leader spoke tearfully of losing a "big sister."
Papandreou placed an olive branch from Greece among the red roses under a photo of Lindh, and his French colleague Dominique de Villepin said her enthusiasm had given politics a "perfume."
European Commission President Romano Prodi told Reuters as the mourners left that Europe had lost "a hope. She was so full of joy. We expected a lot from her for the future."
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, humbled by the euro defeat and bowed by Lindh's murder, said Swedes "will carry the memory of Anna with us for a long time like an invisible treasure to give us strength, joy and warmth."
(Additional reporting by Jenny Andersson)
Some would say that's cruel and unusual punishment.
Me, I like lutfisk. Had it every Christmas Eve growing up.
Lutfisk: The piece of cod that passes all understanding.
On top of this, it is even possible to "like" some people you vehemently disagree with (not all, though--e.g., the Clintons). It seems that on a personal level Anna Lindh was a rather likeable person. Colin Powell has said so, even though he and Lindh disagreed on issues. (Powell wanted to attend today's ceremony, but the hurricane prevented him.)
Weather forces Powell to miss memorial service for slain Swedish FM
Thu Sep 18,12:01 PM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell cancelled plans to attend the memorial service in Stockholm for slain Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh due to inclement weather.
Powell said he had reluctantly called off the because the US Air Force had removed the planes normally used for official travel from Andrews Air Force Base to protect them from being damaged by Hurricane Isabel which is now bearing down on Washington.
"I deeply regret that I am unable to travel to Stockholm for the September 19 memorial service for Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh," he said in a statement.
Powell said he had told Swedish officials that "it was impossible for me to make the trip because Air Force planes have been evacuated in advance of storm's arrival.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of Anna Lindh, and I had hoped to join them in honoring and cherishing her memory," he said.
"Anna's achievements as a national and international leader and her memory as a friend deserve the highest praise and tribute from us all," Powell said.
State Department officials said Powell had looked into the possibility of alternate transportation but noted that the hurricane had forced the closure of the federal government and disrupted commercial airline and rail service.
US ambassador to Sweden Charles Heimbold will represent Powell at Friday's service, he said.
Powell was to have left Washington late on Thursday and returned home immediately after Friday's service for Lindh who died last week from stab wounds inflicted by an attacker in an upmarket Stockholm department store.
One of Europe's most respected and best-liked diplomats, Lindh had served as foreign minister since 1998 after a four-year tenure as environment minister.
In a statement released shortly after her September 11 death, Powell said Lindh had made "outstanding contributions" to US-European relations and diplomacy in general.
"She had a special energy, integrity and compassion and she spent a great deal of her time focusing her efforts on global humanitarian issues," he said. "Anna was a cherished colleague and friend, and I will miss her."
I translated the lower line as:
"Murder at NK, Haning Street in Stockholm, September 10, 2003"
However, I didn't see the image clearly and thus mistranslated a word. The Swedish says, Hamngatan. Hamn is "harbor" and gatan is "the street," so Hamngatan would be translated as "Harbor Street."
Meanwhile, just a stone's throw away at Stockholm's district court, judge Lars Sjoestroem acceded to a request by prosecutors to keep the main suspect in Lindh's killing, Per Olof Svensson, in custody for another week to allow them to assemble evidence.
DNA testing is believed to figure prominently among the evidence.
Speaking to reporters outside the court, Svensson's lawyer Gunnar Falk said he was "not surprised" by the decision.
"It is understandable that the court gives the prosecutor time" to strengthen its case, he said, adding however that he was "not impressed by the evidence" presented by the prosecutor.
The court's decision raises the chances that Svensson, who was arrested Tuesday, could be charged with the murder of the popular minister, although prosecutors stressed that point had not yet been reached.
Gunnar Falk, center, defender of the 35-year-old man suspected of the slaying
of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, talks to media on his way into the
courtroom at Stockholm City Court for remand hearings Friday Sept. 19, 2003.
(AP Photo/Jonas Ekstromer)
No, to murder her was wrong. That woman constantly sided with pure evilness.
Whether it was stupidity, hatred of Western values, naiveness, anti-Americanism, sexual frustration, I don't know.
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