Posted on 11/02/2003 7:33:25 AM PST by knighthawk
Swedish police have found a pair of trousers covered in the blood of the country's foreign minister Anna Lindh which could belong to her killer, a newspaper has reported.
The revelation comes just five days before prosecutors are due to bring formal charges against Mijailo Mijailovic, the key suspect for the September 10 knife attack against the popular Lindh.
The Swedish police laboratory confirmed that the trousers, found in a forest, were soaked with Lindh's blood, the Expressen daily said.
"In a precise place in the trousers there was also an object that allows us to say technically that the trousers are those of the 24-year-old man [Mijailovic]," a police officer told the paper.
This could consolidate the police case against Mijailovic, having already retrieved DNA samples from the bloodied knife and mask that was left behind after the attacker fled the scene on foot.
Police refused to comment, with a spokesman saying only that investigators had already made it known two weeks ago that technical evidence had been strengthened.
The Aftonbladet daily said Sunday that analysis of the shape of the nose and dimples of the suspected killer matched those of the man caught on film by a surveillance camera in Stockholm's NK department store only minutes before Lindh was stabbed. Expressen reported last week that a special three-dimensional analysis of the man on camera, focusing on body measurements and conducted by a Danish expert, proved conclusively that the "NK man" was Mijailovic.
Mijailovic's lawyer has said his client insists he is innocent of the crime.
However, prosecutor Agneta Blidberg told Ekot radio, "proof, in my opinion, is strong".
While prosecutors have November 7 as their latest date to formally charge Mijailovic, they are expected to request further extensions.
However, they do hope to press charges before Christmas in a case that shocked the nation and revived painful members of the unresolved 1986 murder of prime minister Olof Palme.
A Swede of Serb origin, Mijailovic is said to have suffered 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, who was tipped as a potential prime minister, was without a bodyguard, as is customary in Sweden, when the attack occurred.
She died of her injuries the following day.
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I wonder how he felt about Fat Maddy Albright.
I find this to be an interesting comment. Lindh became foreign minister in 1998. Sweden applied for membership in the EU in 1991. All the debates were held in the following years and a referendum was held on the matter. Sweden joined the EU on January 1, 1995.
How do you figure Lindh coerced the Swedish people into joining the EU?
Sweden joined the EU a pretty good while back. You were saying that Lindh tried to make them join although she became foreign minister 3 years after the Swedish people themselves had already voted to join the EU.
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