Stabbed minister fights for life

Anna Lindh, Sweden’s popular foreign minister who was stabbed repeatedly in an exclusive Stockholm department store, remained in a critical condition today, following eight hours of surgery.

Lindh, who was attacked yesterday, was taken to the Karolinska Hospital and went into surgery at 5pm local time. (4pm Irish time).

“The foreign minister’s condition, right now, is somewhat improved, but still critical,” Dr Goeran Wallin said today, adding she had suffered from severe internal bleeding and injuries to her liver and stomach.

Lindh was stabbed in the stomach, chest and arm, and police were searching for a man wearing a camouflage jacket who fled the store.

The attack on Lindh, a popular government minister, shocked a nation that has long prided itself on the accessibility of its politicians, who rarely use bodyguards.

Police said they did not believe the attack was politically motivated, but it stirred memories of the unsolved murder of prime minister Olof Palme, who was killed while walking home from a cinema with his wife in 1986.

The attack cast a pall over the country’s referendum to decide whether to adopt the euro, and campaigning on the issue was postponed for at least a day. It was not known if Sunday’s referendum vote would be delayed.

Jan Larsson, a government spokesman, said the “issue had been raised” but added it would be a “very big, complicated project to move an election day”.

Lindh, 46, who is number three in the government and a leading supporter of the European Union’s common currency, has often been touted as a possible successor to prime minister Goeran Persson. Like most Swedish politicians, she did not have a bodyguard.

Persson said security was being re-examined in the wake of the stabbing, which he called an assault on the Scandinavian country’s tradition of openness and the accessibility of its leaders.

“The attack is an attack on our open society and because of this, I am feeling great anger and dismay,” he said, adding that security around government buildings had been tightened.

“For some people, this may bring back all the terrible memories of years back when Prime Minister Olof Palme was killed,” said Green Party leader Peter Eriksson. “This may very well lead to Swedish politicians having to have bodyguards from now on.”

Only Persson and Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf have personal security details.