Citation

Unsgaard E, Meloy JR. J. Forensic Sci. 2011; 56(2): 555-559.

Affiliation

Ministry of Justice, Government of Sweden, Odengatan 10, 11424 Stockholm, Sweden. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA 92161. San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute, 4455 Morena Blvd., San Diego, CA 92117.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01653.x

PMID

21210810

Abstract

  On September 10, 2003, Anna Lindh, the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, was assassinated. The offender, a 24-year-old man, was a socially isolated, culturally and familially dislocated, yet academically quite competent young man who became enthralled with the habitual criminality of some of his relatives and their associates, and then psychiatrically decompensated in his early twenties. He had a history of serious violence before the crime, including the gross assault with a knife of his alcoholic and abusive father when he was 17, stalking, and extortion. At least a year prior to the assassination, he confided to a friend his desire to attack someone famous in front of many people. A definitive motive for the crime was not possible to establish. This was an act of intended, yet opportunistic violence toward a national political figure. The dynamics of the case are placed in the context of other attacks on Western European and U.S. politicians.

Language: en