Danish police say an inventor dumped Swedish journalist Kim Wall's body into the ocean after she died in an accident on his DIY submarine. Hopes of finding Wall alive had diminished since her disappearance on August 10.
Danish police say the freelance Swedish journalist Kim Wall died aboard the do-it-yourself UC3 Nautilus submarine captained by inventor Peter Madsen, who had initially claimed to have dropped her off at the tip of a Copenhagen island. After over a week of denying any role in Wall's disappearance, on Monday he admitted to dumping her body into the ocean.
Madsen "told police and the court that there was an accident on board the sub that led to the death of Kim Wall, and that he subsequently buried her at sea in an undefined location of the Koge Bay," approximately 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Copenhagen, officers reported in a statement.
Last week, Danish authorities upgraded an initial charge of involuntary negligent manslaughter against Madsen, who owned and designed the amateur-built submarine - the biggest homemade underwater boat ever when it first took to the seas in 2008. Danish police say Madsen deliberately sank the 18-meter (60-foot) submarine in the Bay of Koge, south of Copenhagen, shortly before his rescue on August 11.
The new charge of aggressive manslaughter covers deaths that occur in such instances as a killer's driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. In Denmark, the crime can lead to a sentence of up to eight years in prison.
Until Madsen confessed, police from Denmark and Sweden and members of the voluntary Swedish Lifesaving Society had conducted a search of the waters of the Oresund straits between the two countries and parts of their coastlines with dwindling hopes of finding her alive. At one point, chief investigator Jens Moeller Jensen acknowledged that "it is our clear presumption that we are looking for a dead person."
(With AFP, dpa, AP)
