STOCKHOLM, 13 September 2003 — Police said yesterday they were still searching for Swedish man in connection with the shock slaying of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, adding they believed he might have killed before.
“This is not the act of a novice criminal. The killer has done this kind of thing before — you don’t begin your criminal career with this kind of crime,” Stockholm criminal police chief Leif Jennekvist said.
The prosecutor in charge of the case, Agneta Blidberg ordered several potential suspects to be called in for questioning overnight.
“We have questioned people who match the description given by witnesses, all of them have violent tendencies,” police spokesman Bjoern Pihlblad said.
Lindh was stabbed in the arm, abdomen and chest by her assailant while she was out shopping at a department store in the city centre on Wednesday, and died early Thursday of massive internal bleeding. Her assailant fled the store on foot, leaving behind the bloodied knife, a baseball cap and a sweatshirt. Experts are running DNA tests on the items, and the results are expected within a few days.
Jennekvist has said that police are also looking into “extremist circles”, but provided no further details. A nationwide alert has been issued for the suspect, with increased security at the country’s borders and airports.
Police have not released an identikit of the killer, but have described him as having a haggard face and heavy build, about 1.80 meters tall.
Hundreds of police officers are working around the clock on the case and authorities have said they are putting “all resources” possible into the investigation.
More than just a gifted politician, Lindh was seen by Swedes first and foremost as a unique human being who inspired all those struggling to balance the demands of the modern world. Candle-light vigils and makeshift shrines have sprung up across the country since news came in that the woman who was tipped to one day become their prime minister had been fatally stabbed. Tens of thousands of people were expected to attend anti-violence rallies held in her honor yesterday, as an outpouring of numbed grief swept Sweden.
The Foreign Ministry said yesterday Lindh was sent an e-mail threatening her and her children two weeks before she was assassinated.
The e-mail accused Lindh — who campaigned hard for Swedes to vote “Yes” to joining the euro in a referendum tomorrow — of being a “power-hungry bitch sitting in the lap of big business,” public service SR radio said quoting from the letter. Lindh, a 46-year-old mother of two, had no bodyguards like most Swedish politicians, apart from the prime minister.
Many Swedes fear her murder will go unsolved like that of Prime Minister Olof Palme who was shot dead in central Stockholm in 1986 while walking home from a cinema. Palme had given his bodyguards a night off.
