SWEDEN: The man who has confessed to killing Swedish Foreign Minister Ms Anna Lindh in September stabbed her several times with a knife, saying Jesus told him to do so, police said yesterday.
Mr Mijailo Mijailovic (25) confessed last week to the attack - having denied until then any involvement since his arrest on September 24th - but told prosecutors and his defence lawyer the deed had been unplanned and lacked political motive.
Prosecutors charged Mr Mijailovic with murder yesterday, saying evidence tied him to the murder weapon and the victim.
"He says he did not have a political motive, and that it happened all of a sudden. That is his version," chief prosecutor Ms Agneta Blidberg told reporters.
Mr Mijailovic told police he knew who he was stabbing, but that he had had nothing personal against Ms Lindh (46), who was tipped as Sweden's next prime minister.
"It was a coincidence that I happened to see her," he said according to the police hearing protocol. "It could also have been someone else."
Mr Mijailovic, a high-school drop-out who had sought psychiatric help before the attack, said inner voices had spoken to him in the language of his parents from former Yugoslavia, where he spent part of his childhood and early youth. "They told me to stab."
Asked to whom the voices belonged, Mr Mijailovic said: "I think it is Jesus. That he has chosen me."
Mr Mijailovic goes on trial tomorrow, and faces between 10 years and life in prison if convicted for murder.
Mr Leif Jennekvist, the Stockholm police commissioner who led the murder investigation, told reporters Mr Mijailovic made up his mind to kill Ms Lindh during the 14 minutes from the time he saw her enter the central Stockholm department store on September 10th and the deed.
Ms Linnea Arvidsson, manager of the department store boutique where Ms Lindh was killed, told police she heard the assailant say words to the effect of: "You got what you deserved."