'Voices told me to attack Lindh'
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Mijailovic said voices in his head, including Jesus, told him to stab Lindh.
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Anna Lindh's confessed killer told judges he "couldn't resist" the voices he heard telling him to attack the Swedish foreign minister.
Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, looked calm during most of his hour-long cross examination but became annoyed and raised his voice when one of the prosecutors repeatedly asked him about his movements inside the downtown Stockholm department store where he attacked Lindh on September 10.
"I was on my way out but I took a wrong turn. I saw Anna Lindh. Then the voices came," said Mijailovic.
In his confession last week, he said inner voices speaking in the language of his parents from former Yugoslavia had told him to attack and that he believed it was the voice of Jesus.
"I could not resist the voices," he told the court, insisting he had not planned to kill the 46-year-old mother-of-two.
"I took the knife ... I attacked her. I don't know how many stabs."
"I don't remember the actual attack, it went so quickly."
Mijailovic also testified at his trial Wednesday that he didn't attack Lindh because she was a politician.
"I'm not interested in politics," he told chief prosecutor Krister Petersson, who questioned him during his testimony.
"It could have been someone other than Anna Lindh."
Mijailovic, a Swede of Yugoslav origin, told the packed courtroom that the voices spoke to him in Serbian.
His defense lawyer, Peter Althin, said Mijailovic should be tried for manslaughter instead of murder because the stabbing wasn't planned and "there was no political motive and no intent to kill."
But prosecutors say the attack was premeditated, and they are expected to argue Mijailovic followed Lindh for 14 minutes before stabbing her September 10.
The 46-year-old popular politician died the following day, plunging the country into a state of shock and mourning.
Chief prosecutor Agneta Blidberg plans to call three witnesses during the trial, including Eva Franchell, who was with Lindh during the attack, AP reported.
Lindh was stabbed while out shopping with a friend.
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Police also found Lindh's blood on Mijailovic's clothes and his DNA on the murder weapon.
Blidberg told the court that British experts who analyzed DNA samples said the chance they were not from Mijailovic was 1 in 16 million, AP reported.
Prosecutors on Monday charged Mijailovic, 25, with murder, saying forensic evidence linked him to the weapon and the victim.
Mijailovic, who has a history of mental problems, said the attack was a "cry for help."
"I don't know, I think it's Jesus. That he has chosen me," Mijailovic said according to a transcript of his confessions filed with Stockholm District Court, The Associated Press reported.
"I felt awful, I was desperate, and I didn't know what to do. Then I heard voices that spoke to me 'so and so,"' Mijailovic said.
"Then I saw Anna Lindh and then I attacked. Then we ran away and lost the knife in the escalator."
Mijailovic's confession came after nearly four months of denials.
According to documents filed with the court, prosecutors said Lindh was stabbed 10 times and had wounds all over her body.
Mijailovic faces from 10 years to life in prison. Sweden, like other European countries, does not have the death penalty.
Althin said he would request a psychiatric examination for his client. If found mentally ill, he would receive treatment and might not go to jail.
There is no jury in Swedish courts. A panel of judges -- in the Lindh case two professionals and three laymen -- decide the verdict after hearing the prosecution and defense cases along with evidence from witnesses.
Lindh, touted as a future prime minister of the Scandinavian country of 9 million, was popular with many Swedes. Her death shocked the country and left it numb just days ahead of a national referendum on whether to adopt the euro, which failed.
Police maintained her death was not the result of her strong pro-euro stance, calling it merely a random act of violence.
The trial against Mijailovic is expected to dominate media in Sweden, which is still haunted by the unsolved assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.
Like Lindh, Palme was out in public without bodyguards.
Copyright 2004 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
