Justice across the pond

Court overturns Lindh killer sentence

An appeals court in Sweden has thrown out the life prison sentence imposed on the man who killed Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh last year.

Mijailo Mijailovic, 25, will now be taken from prison to a closed psychiatric ward after tests concluded he was suffering a mental illness.

...Mijailovic would have gone to prison for 15 years, the normal term in Sweden for those sentenced to life, but now he faces being placed in a psychiatric institute for criminals.

However, there are no time limits for psychiatric patients, and some experts say he could be set free in a matter of months if deemed healthy.

Yes, they are different in Europe.

A "life sentence" is only 15 years? This man murdered a beloved prime minister in cold blood, a premeditated attack in front of several witnesses.

Under the harshest circumstances Sweden can offer, he will be free at age 40?

And now, because he is a mentally ill murderer, he could be free to walk at any time?

No one in Sweden finds this unfair?

I hold out hope that the Swedes declared him mentally ill precisely because they can now hold him indefinitely. But I won't be surprised when this guy is freed, young and "rehabilitated."

- posted by total @ 7/09/2004 05:13:00 AM .