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Lindh killer 'intelligent guy'
05/03/2004 15:43 - (SA)
Stockholm - The man undergoing a psychiatric evaluation after being convicted of killing Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh does not have a serious mental illness, news reports quoting his prison guards said on Friday.
In January, a Stockholm court found Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, guilty of stabbing Lindh to death in one of the city's department stores last September, but decided to put off sentencing him until after he had undergone psychiatric tests.
The results of the tests are expected to be announced on March 23, when Mijailovic's sentence is due. The psychiatric examination will determine whether Mijailovic was in possession of his mental faculties at the time of the killing - a precondition for a murder verdict.
Swedish media on Friday quoted Mijailovic's prison guards, who are trained to observe his behaviour and whose opinions are expected to weigh in his overall psychiatric evaluation, as saying that he does not appear to be seriously ill.
Serious
"Of course he has a lot of psychological problems, but he is not suffering from a serious illness, and he is an intelligent guy," one guard told Swedish daily Aftonbladet.
A spokesperson for the Kronoberg prison, where the convicted killer is being held, declined to comment on the reports.
Mijailovic's lawyer Peter Althin, however, said he was not worried by the reports of the guards' evaluation of his client.
"With all due respect to the prison guards, I really don't think their assessment will have any impact on the final verdict," he said.
Lindh, who was shopping without a bodyguard, received several stab wounds in her stomach, chest and arms on September 10, and her death the following day stunned a nation that expected her to one day lead it as prime minister.
Mijailovic, a Swede of Serbian origin who has a history of psychiatric problems, confessed to stabbing Lindh. He testified that he was sleep-deprived and under heavy medication at the time of the attack.
Legal experts have said that if the psychiatric evaluation showed that Mijailovic was mentally unstable at the time of the killing, he would be found guilty of a lesser charge of manslaughter.
A life sentence in Sweden usually means about 15 years in prison. However, Mijailovic could serve significantly less than that if he is sentenced to psychiatric care, and could be released as soon as his doctors decide that he is no longer ill.
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