Lindh killer's 'shy' getaway

2004-01-19 12:08

Stockholm - The man who fatally stabbed Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh four months ago appeared calm but distant as he fled the scene of his crime in a taxi, a Stockholm cab driver told court on Monday.

On the last day of a trial into the killing of Lindh, who had been tipped to one day lead Sweden as prime minister, prosecutors called the taxi driver as a last-minute witness before both sides presented their closing arguments.

Lindh, who was shopping without a bodyguard in a Stockholm store, was attacked on September 10 with a knife, and died the next day of several stab wounds to her stomach, chest and arms.

The accused, Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Serbian origin with a history of psychiatric problems, has admitted to stabbing Lindh, but rejects the prosecution's murder charge, arguing that he did not intend to kill her.

After the attack, he fled the scene on foot, and then hailed a taxi to take him away from the city centre to the suburb where he lived.

During the 40-minute taxi ride, which Mijailovic spent sitting in the front seat, cabbie Norretin Kanat got the "impression was that he was a little tired, a little slow, a little shy".

As the taxi driver manouevred his way through the Stockholm rush-hour traffic, he tried, with little success, to draw his passenger into conversation, having no idea what Mijailovic had just done.

"For every 10 sentences that I would say, he would say two," he said.

The prosecution called the taxi driver as a witness to help prove that Mijailovic knew what he was doing when he attacked Lindh, which would justify the murder charge.

- AFP