Lindh wanted bodyguards

2003-09-28 20:59

Stockholm - Sweden's security agency turned down repeated suggestions from foreign ministry officials to send bodyguards to protect the country's murdered foreign minister despite threats and hate letters, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

When the foreign ministry asked if the agency, SAPO, was going to provide Anna Lindh with bodyguards during a campaign for adopting the euro in a September referendum, the agency responded, "There is no threatening picture," the newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported.

Both SAPO and the foreign ministry refused on Sunday to comment on the report.

According to Dagens Nyheter, Lindh had received several hate letters and had been approached by aggressive persons during campaign meetings.

Lindh's husband, Bo Holmberg, a local politician, told Dagens Nyheter that his wife never refused bodyguards.

"If Anna had had bodyguards at the department store where she was killed, the killing would never had happened," he was quoted as saying.

Suspect

A 24-year-old Swede with a history of violence and mental problems was arrested last week, suspected of killing Lindh. On Friday, a judge ordered a two-week extension to Mijailo Mijailovic's detention to give investigators time to gather evidence linking him to the killing, and ordered a psychiatric evaluation.

Mijailovic, of Yugoslav descent, was arrested on Wednesday when police raided his family's apartment south of the capital, Stockholm. He hasn't been charged in killing, and claims he is innocent.

Lindh was stabbed in the chest, abdomen and arms September 10 while shopping with a friend at a crowded department store in downtown Stockholm. She died from her injuries a day later.

Polioce 'secretive'

Police remained secretive about the investigation, including whether DNA found at the crime scene matched the suspect's. Police spokesperson Ulf Goeransson said the suspect will be interrogated on Monday at the earliest.

Still haunted by the unsolved 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme, police said they are examining many leads in the hunt for Lindh's killer.

The investigation first focused on a 35-year-old drifter, who was detained for a week after prosecutors said there was "reasonable cause" he was Lindh's killer.

Palme was shot while walking home from a movie theater with his wife. Like Lindh, he had no bodyguards.

- AP