The front page reads:
The police's picture of the suspected
MURDERER
3 minutes before the murder of Anna Lindh
Now my question is this: Why do they "pixelate" the guy's face if they're trying to catch him?
Posted on 09/13/2003 9:18:26 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish sympathy for murdered pro-euro Foreign Minister Anna Lindh has thrown Sunday's vote on swapping the crown for the euro wide open, with one poll on the eve of the referendum pointing to an upset "Yes" win.
Police said they were "very anxious" to question a dark-haired man in a cap whose image was caught by a security camera in the department store where Lindh was stabbed on Wednesday. They would not confirm reports he was the main suspect.
In a sign that grief for Lindh may swing Swedes toward the European Union's single currency, a Gallup poll taken after she died on Thursday showed that backing for the euro had jumped to lead the opposition by 43-42 percent.
It was the first poll since April to suggest a "Yes" victory in the September 14 referendum. In a Gallup survey earlier this week the "No" side had led by 50-35. Lindh, who was 46, was a passionate advocate of the euro.
A DI/Ruab poll, albeit only of a tiny sample of 277 people in the Dagens Industri daily, also showed a surge of support to bring the "Yes" side neck-and neck with the "No" camp.
A Temo survey for the Dagens Nyheter daily, also taken after Lindh's death, showed the "No" camp with a 46-40 percent lead. However the number of undecided voters had risen slightly from a previous survey showing a "No" win by 48-42, and a senior Temo official said the final result on Sunday could go either way.
"There is a national sense of catastrophe," Temo senior consultant Arne Modig told Reuters. "Voters are having a hard time deciding how to vote."
SYMPATHY
"I feel sympathy for her but I'm still going to vote 'No'," said Jorgen Ekstrand, 56, after placing a red rose on pile of thousands of flowers at a makeshift shrine outside the store where Lindh was stabbed. "I like the crown."
"I'm voting 'Yes'," said Johanna Elgenius, 33, outside the store. "Her death could win sympathy votes for the 'Yes' side but it also might make some people vote 'No' because they may be even more worried by change."
Many Swedes fear joining the euro could undermine their generous cradle-to-grave welfare system, despite assurances from Prime Minister Goran Persson that the economy would benefit.
Police commissioner Leif Jennekvist confirmed that pictures of a man published on Saturday by Swedish tabloids, with the face blanked out, were police images taken from footage produced by security cameras inside the department store around the time of the killing.
"We are very anxious to come into contact with the person on the pictures or somebody who knows this person," he said. Jennekvist would not confirm tabloid headlines that he was the main suspect.
Lindh's murder halted all euro campaigning, but politicians urged Swedes to vote to reaffirm democratic values. Lindh died a few blocks from where Prime Minister Olof Palme was gunned down in an unsolved 1986 assassination.
In Stresa, Italy, euro zone finance ministers expressed hopes for a 'Yes' vote. "It would be like an extra friend," Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm said.
And Swedish Finance Minister Bosse Ringholm said there were hopeful signs for a Yes vote. He praised France on Saturday for giving ground in a budget row by offering to bring its budget deficit into line by 2005 with euro zone rules.
"The French budget position has not helped our campaign. It's been very negative... but (France's concession) is hopefully a turning point," he said.
Financial markets have broadly discounted a "No" and analysts say that a "Yes" could bolster the crown. One 18-year-old Swede suggested Lindh's face should be on the euro if Sweden joins, rather than that of King Carl XVI Gustaf.
(With extra reporting by Patrick McLoughlin, Niklas Pollard, Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm and Lisa Jucca in Stresa, Italy)
More up-to-the-moment stories, pictures, etc., may be added as the day goes on.
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A euro vote without a campaign: the bustle surrounding Sweden's key referendum all but dissipated as the country prepared quietly for a vote overshadowed by the memory of the late Anna Lindh.
There were more people carrying red roses in the memory of their beloved foreign minister than holding campaign brochures under the warm sunshine of central Stockholm on the eve of a Sunday vote in which Sweden will opt for or against their country's membership in the single European currency.
"Most people only ask us about how we plan to deal with this tragedy and not why the euro is good for Sweden," said pro-euro campaigner Tobias Sjo at one "yes" booth as a few elderly people milled quietly around him.
"For obvious reasons, most people are concerned about other things."
Prime Minister Goeran Persson suspended campaigning for the referendum within hours of an assailant fatally stabbing Lindh on Wednesday, but political leaders decided to let the referendum itself go ahead.
An informal snap poll conducted on one Stockholm square Saturday by AFP showed that people would prefer not think about the euro vote and many were still undecided about whether to attend a referendum despite its broad repercussions for Europe and the currency's immediate future.
"Maybe tomorrow morning I'll think about this," one woman said of a vote that is being watched closely across Europe. But campaigners said interest picked up by late Saturday as the shock of Lindh's death slowly became to dull and the nation warily turned its attention toward the country's economic future.
"This is a very political country and elections as a rule here have a very high turnout. This is what we are seeing today. Our politics have not disappeared with this tragedy," said Nils Lungren, chairman of the Europe Yes - Euro No committee.
As up to a hundred people milled about his "vote no" stations, Lungren said he even appeared on the radio Saturday alongside representatives from the "yes" camp to talk about the campaign.
"All we did was answer question from the presenter but we did not argue with each other. It was calm -- these are the new rules of the game," he said.
Two divergent opinion polls published Saturday suggested that the race is wide open again after the Lindh killing and that the outcome could hinge on what the 10 to 15 percent of currently undecided voters do.
Lindh had campaigned tirelessly in favor of adopting the euro and had been scheduled to appear in several more television debates when she was stabbed.
It remains unclear whether the death of Lindh at the hands of a knife-wielding assailant will bring out a large sympathy vote for the euro -- although some people suggested it might.
"I gave away nearly 5,000 buttons today," reported Roberta Alenious from the "yes" camp. "But most people picked them just to show their solidarity with Lindh. Very few people asked questions about the euro."
Like all other campaigning, the debates were cancelled after Lindh was stabbed and hospitalized Wednesday. She passed away early Thursday from internal bleeding.
But some activists said they felt uncomfortable talking about monetary matters while the rest of the nation mourns its loss.
"This is not really campaigning. Everyone has other things on their minds. Even those who people who approach us are really very quiet," said "no" camp advocate Mikael von Knoring.
"Everything has gone very quiet," he said.
NYKOPING, Sweden (AFP) - The small Swedish town of Nykoeping battled with grief, loss and anger after the brutal murder of foreign minister Anna Lindh, who lived in this cosy town with her husband and two sons.
Here, the blonde 46-year-old mother of two boys was at home, running errands in jeans at the local square. Never too busy to stop and say a few words to friends, neighbours or even strangers she encountered on the street.
Now, amid tears and mountains of flowers laid down in her honour, residents are trying to cope with the knowledge that the jovial and much-loved woman tipped to one day become prime minister has been snatched from them.
"I often passed her on the street, she was always smiling... Not once did she ever say she didn't have time to stop and chat with me," Sissi Karlsson, a 64-year-old woman with tattooed arms told AFP on Saturday.
Meanwhile, a young couple with two small daughters laid down a bouquet of roses at the foot of the Town Hall, located at the main square which the town of 31,000 is considering renaming in Lindh's honour.
"Anna Lindh's tragic death, and especially the knowledge that her killer remains at large, makes us sick," Katarina and Thomas Johansson said.
Lindh was stabbed by an unknown assailant on Wednesday at a Stockholm department store while she ran mid-afternoon errands, without a bodyguard. Doctors fought throughout the night to save her life, but she succumbed to massive internal bleeding early Thursday.
Her attacker remains at large.
Back at the main square in Nykoeping, Claes-Goeran, the owner of a vegetable stand, sells potatoes to a customer.
"She used to come here at least once a month. Kind, smiling, simple. Anybody could rub shoulders with her," he said. Lindh insisted on dealing with the pleasures and chores of daily life like any other Swede.
She refused to accept a bodyguard, determined to remain in touch with the people she represented and afraid that doing so would introduce an element of menace in the lives of her children, aged nine and 13.
"I don't want secret service protection, I can't accept the kind of lifestyle that would imply," Lindh told an interviewer a few months before her brutal murder.
Claes-Goeran respected her for that decision, even though it may have cost her her life.
"In Nykoeping, she became Mrs. Anybody," he said. "I am devastated."
Lindh lived in Nykoeping, where her husband Bo Holmberg was regional county administrator, and made the 100-kilometer (60-mile) commute to Stockholm daily unless her ministerial schedule prevented her from doing so.
She insisted on returning home every evening where her two boys would wait for their mum to help with the homework.
She was fiercely protective of her family, shielding her children from the media glare she constantly found herself in, and refused to allow journalists anywhere near her home.
I hope the California socialists don't install Snuz Bustamante this way. A sympathy play may become attractive to the power hungry elite.
Translation:
My children and I are unprotected. We are good unarmed Swedes ready and willing to be your next victims. Bring it on.
The front page reads:
The police's picture of the suspected
MURDERER
3 minutes before the murder of Anna Lindh
Now my question is this: Why do they "pixelate" the guy's face if they're trying to catch him?
translation
Yip Yip Yip Yap!
Miniature poodle on duty!
Keep those nasty evil cameras away!
Yip Yip YIP Yap
What a good mother I am!
Now just how did she "fiercely protect" her children and home from reporters without the use of bodyguards or arms? This is a fairy tale. Swedes refuse to face reality if it isn't pretty and superior to all other realities.
The other front page reads:
The police's pictures from inside NK of the suspected murderer
"NK" is Nordiska Kompaniet ("The Nordic Company"), the department store where Lindh was murdered.
Sweden mourns slain Lindh in peace rally ahead of key euro vote (and related stories)
Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, left, with her husband Bo Holmberg and their sons Filip, left, and Daniel, right, in a 1994 file photo.
So we should be on the look-out for a Nike-clad guy with no face.
Swedish papers publish pictures of possible Lindh murder suspect
Sat Sep 13, 2:28 PM ET
STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Two Swedish tabloids published photos of a man who may be the prime suspect in the murder of foreign minister Anna Lindh, upsetting police who said they fear for their investigation.
The suspect, whose face was deliberately shown blurred by the publications, was wearing a baseball cap and gray sweatshirt. The police found similar clothing outside the department store where Lindh was stabbed on Wednesday.
Police urged anyone who recognised the man to come forward with information.
The photos, published in Expressen and Aftonbladet, appeared to be stills from a video recording that police had announced they discovered in the department store.
The footage was taken three minutes before the fatal attack on Lindh, the papers claimed.
"The police photo of the murder suspect," read the front-page headline above the photo in Aftonbladet.
The four-colour pictures in Aftonbladet are of relatively high quality and show a man with a big build walking alone through the aisles of the Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) department store where Lindh was stabbed.
The photos show a man who appears to be clean-shaven with shoulder-long dark hair, which matches witness reports, and is without a bag or anything else in his hands.
The paper also ran an insert of a cap that it said police found outside the store and appeared to closely match the one worn by the suspect.
The man was described by the paper being aged about 30 and about 1.80 meters (five feet eleven inches) tall.
Photos in Expressen are more blurred, and on one of them the man appears to be walking in a hurry, hands swinging in the air.
Police spokeswoman Agneta Styrwwoldt-Alfheim told AFP that the footage had been distributed to Swedish police, but not released to the press.
Criminal police chief Leif Jennekvist confirmed meanwhile that the footage was that which police had been given.
Police said they were eager to interview the man but stressed that it was too early to conclude that he really was a suspect, although he fitted the description given by witnesses to the crime.
"We can't say he's a suspect, but we are interested in this person," Styrwwoldt-Alfheim said.
"Several features" of the picture corresponded to indications given by witnesses, she said.
Styrwoldt-Alfheim said investigators were "troubled" by the publications, saying they could compromise a successful conclusion of the case.
The recollections of actual witnesses to the crime may be influenced by seeing the picture, hindering their ability to help in the investigation and which could even allow their testimony to be challenged in any future court case.
"This could ruin the chances of convicting him," she said, adding: "The pictures are classified."
While Expressen's chief editor Otto Sjoeberg said it was an "obvious" decision to publish the photos, Aftonbladet said it was not, and it only made the decision after long negotiations.
"Media outlets have a special responsibility during traumatic events such as this to meet the public's massive interest with important information," editor Anders Gerdin said.
According to the papers, the footage was taken by one of 60 video surveillance cameras installed throughout the NK store.
Lindh's assailant fled the upmarket store by foot and apparently cast aside some of his bloodied clothing to avoid recognition.
Police said they were conducting DNA testing on the clothing and on that belonging to Lindh.
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