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Lindh suspect stays in jail
06/11/2003 17:40 - (SA)
Stockholm - Prosecutors facing a Friday deadline in the investigation into the killing of Sweden's foreign minister Anna Lindh were on Wednesday given two more weeks to bring formal charges against a jailed suspect.
The extension until November 21, granted by a Stockholm court, was a mere formality after the suspect, 24-year-old Mijailo Mijailovic, did not object to his further detention.
Mijailovic has repeatedly claimed that he is innocent.
Lindh, who had been tipped to one day become prime minister, was fatally stabbed in the abdomen by an unknown attacker on September 10 while she was shopping at a Stockholm department store and died the following day, in a killing that stunned Sweden.
Fled on foot
Her attacker fled the scene on foot, leaving behind the bloodied knife and a baseball cap.
Swedish police have previously said that DNA tests conducted on traces from the knife strengthened the case against Mijailovic. The DNA results are expected to be a crucial part of the case brought against Mijailovic.
According to some unconfirmed press reports, Mijailovic confessed to the crime in a conversation with his mother a few days after the attack.
Press reports at the weekend also said police had found a pair of trousers covered in Lindh's blood, which could belong to her killer. The trousers were found in a forest, hidden under a rock.
Prosecutors have said that they hope to press charges before Christmas in a case that revived painful members of the unresolved 1986 murder of prime minister Olof Palme.
A Swede of Serb origin, Mijailovic is said to suffer from psychiatric problems and had a police record showing he was charged in 1997 for attacking his father with a kitchen knife.
Swedish media said he was fixated on certain famous people and "hated Anna Lindh", notably for backing the NATO air strikes against Belgrade during the war in Kosovo in 1999.
Lindh was without a bodyguard, as is customary in Sweden, when the attack occurred, just days before a Swedish referendum on whether to adopt the euro in which she was a leading campaigner for the "yes" vote.
- AFP
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