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The Swedish Supreme Court has sentenced the confessed killer of foreign minister Anna Lindh to life imprisonment. In doing so, the panel over-ruled an appeals court which had ordered psychiatric care for Mijailo Mijailovic. The son of Serbian immigrants had confessed to stabbing Lindh to death last year, but had claimed he was responding to voices in his head. His lawyer, Mikael Nilsson, says Mijailovic will now apply to serve his sentence in Serbia. Nilsson told Swedish Television news that Mijailovic ”realises the potential threat against him is great in Sweden, both in jail and in society at large, so...

The sentencing of Mijailo Mijailovic for the murder of Anna Lindh features prominently in Wednesday's Swedish papers but does not attract the blanket coverage given to her death or the subsequent police investigation. Stockholm's Aftonbladet reports that Mijailovic was completely silent as he was sentenced. It quotes a source saying he said almost nothing as he started his sentence on Tuesday evening and will meet his solicitor today, when they will discuss the possibility of appealing. Expressen concentrates on the time Mijailovic will spend in prison. The paper says he will serve at least 10 or 11 years and be...

The man who admitted knifing Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in a Stockholm department store has been jailed for life for murder. Mijailo Mijailovic had denied murder, insisting he carried out the attack because of "voices in his head". But psychiatric tests ruled he was sane when he carried out the attack last September. A court in Stockholm ruled on Tuesday that he was guilty of murder not manslaughter. He will serve at least 10 years before his sentence can be reviewed. Mijailovic had confessed to repeatedly stabbing the popular minister while she was out shopping, but insisted he did...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The confessed killer of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh will undergo a psychiatric evaluation, a Swedish court ruled Monday as it rejected an emotional plea for his release. The Stockholm district court said there was "convincing evidence" to back prosecutors' claims that Mijailo Mijailovic intended to kill Lindh when he knifed her Sept. 10. But it postponed a verdict in the case for at least four weeks until after the psychiatric evaluation of Mijailovic, who said voices in his head told him to repeatedly stab the popular politician. Psychiatric experts at Huddinge hospital outside Stockholm could start examining...

 Closing Arguments in Swedish Foreign Minister Murder CaseJanuary 19, 2004 ROGER F. GAY FOR MND NEWSWIRE After two and a half days of testimony and arguments from both sides, five days after the trial began, closing arguments were given this morning in the case against Mijailo Mijailovic, the man being tried for the murder of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh. The court announced its decision, made last Friday, that Mijailovic will undergo psychiatric evaluation. Deliberations have been suspended pending completion of the evaluation, which is estimated to take four to five weeks. After release of results, it is possible...

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. 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 realized that he had driven Mijailovic home on September 10 after the attack on...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - A Swedish court heard a spine-chilling first hand account of how a giggly shopping trip turned into tragedy when a knife-wielding assailant fatally attacked foreign minister Anna Lindh. Eva Franchell accompanied her close friend Lindh on a shopping trip to Stockholm's NK department store on September 10 when the foreign minister was stabbed repeatedly by a 25-year-old Swede born to immigrant parents. Mijailo Mijailovic, who has a history of psychiatric problems, admitted last week to assaulting Lindh, but has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, arguing that he did not intend to kill her. Franchell...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Showing little emotion, Mijailo Mijailovic told a court Wednesday that he didn't want to stab Foreign Minister Anna Lindh to death, but he "couldn't resist" the voices in his head telling him to kill her. As the murder trial began amid tight security, the 25-year-old Swede of Yugoslav origin said he was innocent of premeditated murder and his lawyer, Peter Althin, called for the charge to be downgraded to manslaughter. "I am really sorry for what happened," Mijailovic said when he was questioned by prosecutors. "She was a nice person. It wasn't meant to be like this."...

The man who has admitted killing Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh in September will go on trial for murder today, when he is expected to tell the court that Jesus told him to do it but that he had no political motive. Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, a Swede born to Serbian parents, confessed last week to fatally stabbing Lindh, one of the country's most popular politicians, at Stockholm's upmarket NK department store on September 10. The trial, which millions of Swedes are expected to follow via a live radio broadcast, is expected to conclude on January 19. If convicted, Mijailovic faces...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Mijailo Mijailovic, who goes on trial on Wednesday for the murder of Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh, is a tortured young man torn since childhood between Sweden and Serbia and bearing a history of violence. The 25-year old's confusion goes as far as believing that his actions are dictated by divine voices. Born in Sweden of Serb immigrant parents, Mijailovic was at the age of six sent to Serbia, where he lived, with his mother and sister, in his grandparent's house in Mladenovac, near Belgrade. His father worked in Stockholm, sending his wages to his family. As...

The man suspected of killing Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh is 24, the son of immigrants from former Yugoslavia, is not interested in weapons, does not take drugs and cares about "injustice." Documents released to Reuters on Friday by an appeals court, following an ethical debate about naming a man who has not yet been charged and maintains his innocence, gave no clues to any motive for the knife attack a month ago on 46-year-old Lindh. The man, arrested two weeks ago, is named as Mijailo Mijailovic, born in Sweden in 1978. He spent a few years at school in...

By KARL RITTER, Associated Press Writer STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A judge on Friday identified a Swedish man of Yugoslav origin as the main suspect in the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh and ordered him held for at least two more weeks while investigators gather more evidence. Judge Goeran Nilsson called Mijailo Mijailovic, 24, a flight risk and said he could jeopardize the investigation if freed from police custody. The decision gives authorities two weeks to investigate and prepare charges. Mijailovic, who was arrested Wednesday but not charged, was escorted into the courtroom by four guards, a yellow, jail-issue prison...