STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 28 (UPI) -- The man who admitted stabbing Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh now says he did not intend to kill her.
Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, says he was mentally ill at the time of the attack and voices in his head told him to kill Lindh when he saw her in a Stockholm department store last year, the BBC reported Monday. She died a day later.
Mijailovic's lawyer, Peter Althin, has asked the court to reduce the sentence for the murder conviction or reduce the charge to involuntary manslaughter.
"This was an impulsive act and it was a coincidence that it was Anna Lindh," Althin said.
Court-appointed experts concluded after Mijailovic was convicted he was suffering from a borderline personality disorder and should be given psychiatric treatment.
If the court sentences him to a secure hospital for psychiatric treatment he could be released after two years if he recovers.
