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Massive mourning after Swedish minister's death

A man lit a candle yesterday in front of the Stockholm department store where Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed. Lindh died from severe internal bleeding and injuries to her stomach and liver after she was stabbed multiple times by an unknown assailant on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson was to lead a mass gathering in Stockholm yesterday in memory of foreign minister Anna Lindh, who died of a fatal stabbing that has left Sweden in shock.

The demonstration in the center of the city has been called "A Protest against Violence and For Democracy."

The second day of mourning over Lindh's death followed a night on which thousands of stunned Stockholmers held candle-light vigils and lay beds of roses -- the symbol of Lindh's Social Democratic party -- at spontaneous memorial sites that sprung up in the city.

"I think we just lost the most important person who existed in modern Swedish politics. It will take many years to find another person like her. And perhaps we never will," said salesman Ronny Soderberg. And morning television news coverage was consumed with interviews of ordinary citizens who often looked too shattered by Lindh's fatal stabbing at an upmarket department store Wednesday to string together more than a few words.

That outpouring of grief for one of the country's most popular leaders was to culminate at 5:00pm when Persson was to speak at the gathering at the Sergels Torg square.

A second demonstration was also scheduled in Sweden's second city of Gothenburg -- the bedrock of Social Democratic support.

"Sweden has lost one of its most important representatives, our face to the world. The country is in shock and [it has been] plunged into sadness," Persson said in a televised broadcast to the Swedish nation Thursday evening.

Persson summed up the feeling of utter disbelief shared by his fellow Swedes by saying: "It feels unreal, it is difficult to truly understand."

But he added that a hotly contested referendum on whether to adopt the euro as the country's currency -- a move that Lindh fought for fervently -- would go ahead as planned on Sunday.

A poll released yesterday after Lindh's death by the Skop research institute showed that although most Swedes had opposed the euro before, the "yes" and "no" camps were now running neck-and-neck.

Some economists suggested this was an emotional breaking point linked to Lindh's slaying and that the "yes" would prevail Sunday.

But a second opinion poll published yesterday conducted by Sifo for the TT news agency showed that the "no" vote has kept its lead since the death of Lindh.

The 46-year-old mother of two succumbed to massive internal bleeding caused by a damaged liver on Thursday morning.

But a hunt for the attacker has so far borne no fruit, with police announcing yesterday they had released a 32-year-old man, once seen as the prime suspect, after questioning him in connection with the attack.

"We have a number of people that we are under investigation, we have not singled out a suspect," Stockholm police spokesman Bjoern Pihlblad said.

Lindh was a heavyweight on Sweden's political scene who had been tipped to succeed Persson as prime minister.

The attack on Lindh, who was without a bodyguard, brought back memories of the 1986 assassination of former prime minister Olof Palme as he was leaving a cinema in downtown Stockholm.

A member of Sweden's ruling Social Democratic party, Lindh became foreign minister in 1998. She was voted the fourth-most admired woman in Sweden in a recent survey.
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