I heard voices, says Swedish minister Lindh's killer

Swedish prosecutors today charged a man with the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, setting the stage for a trial later this week.

Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, a Swede of Yugoslav descent, confessed to the frenzied stabbing of Lindh in a Stockholm department store and it was a random attack.

“I felt awful, I was desperate, and I didn’t know what to do. Then I heard voices that spoke to me ‘so and so,”’ he said in a confession provided by prosecutors.

“Then I saw Anna Lindh and then I attacked. Then we ran away and lost the knife in the escalator.”

According to documents filed with the Stockholm District Court, prosecutors said Lindh, touted as a future prime minister, was stabbed 10 times in the September attack and had stab wounds all over her body.

The 46-year-old politician died the next day after doctors worked through the night to save her, plunging the country into a state of shock and mourning.

Mijailovic’s lawyer, Peter Althin, said the attack was random and not politically-motivated.

The trial is expected to start on January 14 and Mijailovic faces between 10 years and life in prison, or in a mental hospital if found not mentally competent.