STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The lawyer for the man who stabbed Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh to death last year asked the Supreme Court to quash an earlier murder verdict and convict his client of manslaughter instead.
"We ask that the Supreme Court not hold him responsible for murder. If the Supreme Court should find that he had intent to kill ... we believe Mijailo Mijailovic should be sentenced for manslaughter," lawyer Mikael Nilsson told Sweden's highest court on the first day of an appeal hearing.
The court must decide once and for all whether Mijailovic, a 25-year-old man with a history of mental illness, should be sentenced to life imprisonment or ordered to undergo psychiatric care.
He was convicted of murder by two lower courts.
Lindh died on September 11 last year, a day after Mijailovic knifed her repeatedly in the stomach, chest and arms while she was shopping at a Stockholm store without a bodyguard.
Mijailovic has admitted killing Lindh, but has argued that he was so mentally ill at the time that he had not realized his actions would be fatal. Intent to kill is a prerequisite for a murder conviction in Sweden.
Nilsson insisted his client's attack on Lindh was not premeditated and that he had not stalked her.
"It was a fluke that Anna Lindh was the victim. It could have been anyone," Nilsson said, reiterating his client's claim that "voices in his head" told him to attack her.
A district court sentenced Mijailovic to life in prison, but an appeals court later ordered him into psychiatric care instead. It ruled that he suffered from a severe psychological disorder, which in Sweden automatically rules out a prison sentence.
Prosecutors, who have argued that Mijailovic's apparent indifference to whether or not Lindh would die should be considered as intent, on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court sentence and called for him to be sentenced to life behind bars.
They have argued that his rational behavior following the killing -- when he tried to cover his tracks by hiding his bloody clothes in a wooded area and change his appearance -- indicated that he was of sound mind at the time.
"We request that the Supreme Court change the appeals court verdict and sentence Mijailo Mijailovic to life in prison," prosecutor Krister Petersson said.
Nilsson said his client would not address the Supreme Court, even though the lawyer for Lindh's widower and two young sons pleaded with Mijailovic, who remained tight-lipped through the two previous trials, to explain himself.
"I understand that you're not feeling well. My clients are not feeling well either. Can't you please try to answer questions," Kerstin Wennersten said.
"Mijailo Mijailovic does not have the energy to answer questions, he is in a poor psychological state today," Nilsson said.
After the trial closed for the day early Wednesday afternoon Nilsson insisted that his client was not completely insensitive to the suffering of Lindh's family, pointing out to reporters that Mijailovic had already agreed to the 100,000 kronor (14,000 dollars, 11,000 euros) in damages he had been ordered by the appeals court to pay each of her two sons and her husband.
"He realizes the (extent) of this tragedy, and he is therefore willing to pay the damages," he said.
The court was expected to hear closing statements Thursday.
If he is sentenced to prison, Mijailovic, who renounced his Swedish citizenship in September, is hoping to serve his time in his parents' native Serbia, Nilsson told reporters.
"This is because he feels threatened in Sweden," he said.
11/10/2004 - 18:25 GMT - AFP