Mijailo Mijailović

Security camera photo just before the murder

Mijailo Mijailović ( Serbian - Cyrillic Мијаило Мијаиловић ; born December 6, 1978 in Stockholm ) is a Serbian assassin who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh .

youth

Mijailo Mijailović was born in 1978 as the son of Serbian immigrants in Sweden. At times he went to school in Serbia . He broke off attending high school in Sweden. His youth was portrayed as problematic.

In 1997 he was convicted of assault in Sweden after attacking and seriously injuring his father with a kitchen knife. He testified in court that he wanted to settle a dispute between his parents and could not remember anything. Eventually he was given a suspended sentence. A psychiatric report in the proceedings spoke of an urgent need for psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment.

In other cases, he has been convicted by Swedish courts of illegal firearms possession and telephone harassment of two women.

Murder of Anna Lindh

On September 10, 2003, he stabbed Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in the Nordiska Kompaniet department store in Stockholm , where she was shopping unaccompanied by bodyguards .

Anna Lindh died on September 11th of her serious injuries. The murder roused the international public and led to national shock and discussion in Sweden about the end of open Swedish society.

Mijailo mijailović was based on a photo of a surveillance camera taken from a department store on September 24, as a suspect and in custody taken.

process

Although the murder was assumed to have no political background, some observers suggested that Mijailovic hated Social Democrat Lindh for her positive attitude towards the NATO attack on Belgrade in the 1999 Kosovo war .

On January 6, 2004, Mijailović made a confession . A psychiatric report at the main hearing did not certify any mitigating circumstances; at the time of the offense, he is said to have been sane. He himself stuck to his version that he did not want to kill Anna Lindh, but “inner voices” had ordered him to do the deed. On March 23, he was finally sentenced to life imprisonment by the Stockholm District Court ( Tingsrätt ) . This judgment was overturned after appeal on July 8, 2004 by the higher authority ( Svea hovrätt ), which stated a "significant mental disorder". In the last instance ( Högsta domstolen ), however, the judgment of the local court on December 2, 2004 was confirmed.

Mijailović had both Serbian and Swedish citizenship at the time of the crime . He later gave up the latter.

Web links

• BBC dossier on Mijailović (English)