A Swedish court sentenced the self-confessed killer of foreign minister Anna Lindh to life in prison today after throwing out a plea of insanity for the 25-year-old man who blames "voices" in his head.
"The deed which Mijailo Mijailovic is guilty of warrants a very severe penalty. As no mitigating circumstances have come to light, he is therefore sentenced to life in prison," said the written statement released by the Stockholm court.
The son of Serb immigrants admitted to stabbing Ms Lindh (46), a mother of two, 10 times in a frenzied attack in a Stockholm department store last September. Ms Lindh, who had been tipped as the next prime minister, died a day later.
Mijailovic was arrested two weeks later and confessed in January, telling the court: "I was on my way out but I took a wrong turn. I saw Anna Lindh. Then the voices came and said I should attack her. I could not resist the voices."
But after psychiatrists found he could not be acquitted on grounds of insanity, public prosecutor Agneta Blidberg said in the trial ending last week that the "violent, forceful and aggressive" attack merited a life sentence for murder.