Lindh's killer faked mental illness

Mijailo Mijailovic sits next to his lawyer Peter Althin in a Stockholm court (AP)

The man who killed the Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in 2003 told a newspaper that he faked mental illness during his trial to try to get a lighter sentence.

Mijailo Mijailovic, 32, was quoted by Expressen as saying that his knife attack on Lindh in a Stockholm department store was motivated by a hatred of politicians. His earlier claim that voices in his head had encouraged him to stab Lindh was a ploy to receive psychiatric care instead of a prison sentence, he said.

"I was rambling to get psychiatric care. Everything was made up. I didn't hear voices," he told the daily paper. "The more you ramble, the more the doctors listen to you. But there are doctors who are difficult to fool, and there are those who are easy to fool."

Mijailovic stabbed Lindh – one of Sweden's most popular politicians at the time – inside the NK department store in September 2003. She died a day later.

An appeals court sentenced Mijailovic to psychiatric care but the Swedish Supreme Court later overturned the ruling and gave him life in prison. AP