STOCKHOLM, 9 July 2004 — A Swedish high court ruled yesterday the convicted murderer of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh should be sent to a psychiatric unit rather than face life in jail.
The court upheld a lower court’s decision in March to convict 26-year-old Mijailo Mijailovic of murder but said there was overwhelming evidence he suffered from a mental disorder.
It canceled the life imprisonment sentence imposed by the lower court but did not say how long Mijailovic should stay in mental care.
One crime expert said the average time spent by convicted murderers in a psychiatric institution in Sweden is five years.
Mijailovic had admitted stabbing Lindh in a department store in central Stockholm in September but denied intent to kill. The court said he had acted on an impulse when he attacked Lindh.
After hearing testimony from psychiatrists who carried out mental checks before the first trial and others who conducted tests before the appeal, the court concluded there was “massive support for the assessment that Mijailo Mijailovic is suffering from a psychiatric disorder.”
“No motive for the deed has emerged and in the opinion of the high court it is also unclear to what extent the deed was planned,” the court said. It said it assumed “the attack was some kind of impulsive act.”
The slaying of the popular politician in front of several witnesses shocked a nation where top political figures rarely had bodyguards despite the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme by a lone gunman who has yet to be found.
Crime psychiatry professor Gunnar Kullgren said once psychiatrists declared a person was sane, they were set free.
“When it comes to murder, the time spent in a mental institution is usually shorter than it would have been if they had been sent to jail,” Kullgren told Reuters.
Two thirds of prisoners convicted of murder in Sweden go to jail while the rest are given mental care, according to the National Council for Crime Prevention.
The ruling was welcomed by Mijailovic’s defense lawyer Peter Althin and prosecutor Krister Petersson said he was not surprised by the decision because of what doctors said about his mental condition.
“For him it’s like winning the lottery because he will receive qualified psychiatric care,” said psychiatrist Anders Forsman, who examined Mijailovic and declared him mentally ill.
Lindh, a 46-year-old mother of two, had been widely tipped as Sweden’s next prime minister.
“This is not quite the kind of justice one would have hoped for,” said Alex Berg, a Swede in his mid-30s.
“It’s a disgrace, he should have gone to jail,” said Britt, a middle-aged woman from the town of Kiruna in northern Sweden.
But student Marina Kaarik said the new ruling was right. “He would not have done it if he hadn’t been ill,” she said.
Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom declined to comment.
The prosecution has until Aug. 5 to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
