Peter Madsen: Danish submarine murderer ‘tries to escape prison’

Man who killed journalist Kim Wall believed to have evaded guards with use of fake bomb – sparking stand-off with police outside jail before his eventual recapture

Peter Madsen seen sitting upright a few hundred metres outside prison (AP)

Murderer Peter Madsen tried to escape prison in Denmark by threatening guards with “a fake bomb” and “pistol-like object”, according to local media reports.

Madsen was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 for murdering and dismembering the Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his hand-built submarine.  

Footage obtained by the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet showed Madsen sitting on the ground a few hundred metres outside the Herstedvester prison on the outskirts of Copenhagen with a “belt-like object” around his stomach.

The newspaper said he may have also used a “pistol-like object” to get past the prison guards and make his way outside – sparking a tense stand-off with the authorities.

Specialist snipers and bomb disposal experts surrounded Madsen after arriving at the scene around 10am local time, before police officers arrested him hours later.

Bomb disposal experts outside prison in Copenhagen following Peter Madsen’s escape (Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty)

Danish police said on Twitter that “a man has been arrested after attempted escape” from prison. Police spokesman Claus Buhr confirmed to the Associated Press it was Madsen.

Psychiatrist Henrik Day Poulsen told the Danish newspaper BT: “He is a gifted man, but also a man who is incredibly dangerous … it is very worrying that people do not take better care of him.”

In April 2018 Madsen was found guilty of murder, sexual assault and the defilement of a corpse.

Judge Anette Burkoe said he had not given a “trustworthy” explanation, after he claimed Ms Wall died accidentally while inside his submarine. Madsen initially denied dismembering her, then confessed that he had done so and said he’d thrown her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The precise cause of death has never been established but the court found Madsen “cut the body into pieces to hide what had happened”.

A self-taught engineer, Madsen built rockets in his spare time and launched his own homemade UC3 Nautilus submarine in 2008.

Ms Wall had planned to interview Madsen for a story on a rocket program he founded in 2014, with the goal of building a crowdfunded rocket to launch himself into space.