Danish sub maker charged with journalist’s murder
18 January, 2018
Danish prosecutors on Tuesday formally charged inventor Peter Madsen with last year’s murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, whose dismembered body parts were found at sea after she interviewed him on his homemade submarine.
Madsen, who was arrested and detained shortly after Wall’s disappearance in August, has admitted cutting up her body and dumping it at sea but has denied intentionally killing her.
His trial will begin on March 8, charged with premeditated murder as well as dismemberment and “sexual relations other than intercourse of a particularly dangerous nature,” prosecutors said.
They said it was not known exactly how Wall was murdered, “but the homicide could have taken place by cutting of the throat or strangulation.”
Prosecutors said they would call for a life sentence against Madsen, which in Denmark averages 16 to 17 years before parole, according to national statistics, though some convicts have been locked up much longer.
In a grisly case that shocked the public, the remains of 30-year-old Wall were found over a series of weeks in Koge Bay, weighed down by metal objects, after she vanished while interviewing Madsen on his submarine on Aug. 10.
Prosecutors have previously said they believe Madsen killed Wall as part of a sexual fantasy.
Investigators found a hard disk in Madsen’s workshop that contained fetish films in which women were tortured, decapitated and burned alive.
Madsen, who is married, has denied any sexual relations with Wall, and insisted the hard drive did not belong to him.
An autopsy showed multiple mutilation wounds to Wall’s genitals.
‘Extremely brutal case’
The full charge sheet will be made public on Jan. 23. Prosecutors urged the media to exercise restraint in publishing details of the case.
“This is a very unusual and extremely brutal case,” prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen said in a statement.
“We hope the media will respect that further evidence in the case must be presented in court and not in the press,” he said.
After intentionally sinking his submarine early on Aug. 11 in Koge Bay, some 50 kilometers from the Danish capital, Madsen was picked up by a rescue vessel and initially told police he had dropped Wall off on land after their interview the previous evening.
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