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Lindh: Last-minute witness
17/01/2004 15:33 - (SA)
Stockholm - A taxi driver who drove the self-confessed killer of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh out of town after the attack could be called as a last-minute witness on the final day of the trial, news reports said on Saturday.
The taxi driver, whose name was not disclosed, could on Monday provide the court with crucial information about 25-year-old Mijailo Mijailovic's state of mind after the murder, prosecutor Krister Petersson told Swedish news agency TT.
The driver contacted police with his story this week, saying he had only just realised that he had driven Mijailovic home on September 10 after the attack on Lindh at the upmarket NK department store in Stockholm.
A Swede of Serbian origin, Mijailovic admitted on January 6 to fatally stabbing the popular politician. Only after he confessed did the details of his whereabouts in the hours after the attack become clear.
After his confession, police suspected Mijailovic may have had an accomplice who drove him out of the city, since they were unable to verify his story about a one-hour taxi ride from central Stockholm to his home in the Tullinge suburb south of the city.
The taxi driver, who works for a small independent taxi company that had not been contacted by police, came forward on Thursday after details of Mijailovic's account appeared in the media.
The driver was questioned by police on Friday.
"We have not seen the (minutes of the) interrogation yet, but there is a lot that indicates that we will call him in" to testify on Monday, prosecutor Krister Petersson told TT.
Mijailovic, whose trial opened on Wednesday, has denied murder, though he has admitted attacking Lindh.
He has argued that he did not intend her to die, and has maintained that he was not in control of his actions since voices ordered him to attack her and he was sleep-deprived and under heavy medication.
The prosecution, which must prove that Mijailovic intended Lindh to die in order to secure a conviction on the murder charge, hopes however to prove that he acted rationally.
Lindh, who had been tipped to one day become her country's prime minister, died on September 11 of injuries after being stabbed repeatedly in the abdomen, arms and chest as she shopped with a girlfriend for clothes. She was 46 and left two young children.
Her death sent shockwaves through Sweden and the world and rekindled memories of the still unsolved 1986 assassination of the country's prime minister Olof Palme.
The trial is to conclude Monday after both sides present their closing arguments.
Mijailovic faces a possible life sentence, which in Sweden usually corresponds to about 15 years, though the court is expected to order a month-long psychiatric evaluation of the accused before reaching its verdict.
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