Court decision day in Lindh murder trial

Prosecutors in the Anna Lindh murder trial were expected today to question a taxi driver who said he drove a sedated Mijailo Mijailovic home minutes after he stabbed Sweden’s popular foreign minister in a Stockholm department store.

On the last day of the trial, prosecutors were trying to bolster their claims that the stabbing to death of the 46-year-old politician was premeditated, not a random attack.

Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Serbian origin, has confessed to the killing, saying voices in his head told him to stab the mother-of-two. He testified last week, saying he did not mean to kill Lindh and felt remorseful about the assault.

Starting at 8am British time, chief prosecutor Agneta Blidberg was making her closing remarks about Mijailovic, and explaining why the evidence contended that he be convicted of murder.

Swedish trials are, analysts say, formal and terse, but the last day is typically one of high emotion.

The prosecutors’ trump card remains the knife, with DNA from both Mijailovic and Lindh on it, making it a ”prosecutor’s dream”.

Prosecutors claim the attack was premeditated and say the taxi driver’s testimony could give details about Mijailovic’s mental state after he stabbed her.

Mijailovic’s defence lawyer, Peter Althin, told the news agency TT that he did not object to the new testimony, saying it would help show Mijailovic told the truth in his account of the killing.

Althin was expected to request a psychiatric screening. If the panel of two judges and three politically-appointed jurors ruled he was suffering from a severe mental illness, Mijailovic would be sentenced to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison.

If the court decided that no examination was needed, the trial would end and a date would be announced for sentencing.

If the court decided on an examination, Mijailovic would be transferred to Stockholm’s Huddinge hospital, where a team of specialists would be waiting. The examination would take about four weeks.