The man who has confessed to killing Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh will go on trial next week, Stockholm district court said today, and could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, admitted during interrogation on Tuesday to repeatedly stabbing Lindh in a Stockholm department store on September 10, after earlier denying any involvement in the knife attack.
The court said in a statement the trial would start on January 14 and was expected to end on January 19.
It expected prosecutors to file formal charges against Mijailovic on Friday. Legal experts say they expect him to be charged with murder. If convicted, he could face between 10 years and life in prison.
Mijailovic, a high-school drop-out born in Sweden to Serbian immigrant parents, told a prosecutor and his defence lawyer on Tuesday he attacked Lindh on the spur of the moment and had no political motive.
The murder of Lindh, a 46-year-old mother of two and widely tipped as Sweden's next prime minister, shocked the normally peaceful Scandinavian country and evoked memories of the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme.