Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died on Thursday, a day after being stabbed by an unknown assailant in Stockholm, a spokesperson for the Karolinska hospital said.
Lindh had been stabbed in the arm, abdomen and chest while shopping at a downtown department store in Stockholm, suffering injuries to her liver and major arteries in the abdomen..
Lindh, one of her country’s most admired politicians, died following massive internal bleeding caused by her injuries, the hospital said.
Lindh had been a high-profile campaigner ahead of Sweden’s vote on whether to swap the krona for the euro, scheduled for Sunday.
Prime Minister Goeran Persson has called off all campaigning in the wake of Wednesday’s attack, which has revived memories of the murder of Sweden’s prime minister Olaf Palme in 1986 by a lone gunman.
Immediately after the attack Persson issued an order to step up security around ministers.
He said he had not yet considered the possibility of cancelling the referendum altogether, but said he would meet with political party leaders around midday to decide how to proceed.
Most observers said they expected Persson to go ahead with the vote.
”He wouldn’t want an assailant affecting democracy,” Arne Modig, a researcher at the Temo polling institute, said.
Lindh’s assailant remained at large more than 15 hours after the attack despite a massive manhunt across the country.
However, as daylight broke with no arrest, police spokesperson Stina Wessling said the investigation was changing from an ”intensive manhunt to a more traditional investigation”.
”We have some leads we are looking into to secure evidence,” she said, adding: ”We have a lot to work with.”
Earlier, Wessling had said police were investigating witness reports that the attack was a bagsnatching that went horribly wrong, but that had yet to be confirmed, she stressed.
The attack immediately sparked a lively debate in Sweden on VIP security, conjuring up memories of the 1986 assassination of then prime minister Olof Palme who was gunned down by a lone attacker after leaving a Stockholm cinema.
Like Palme, and many top-level Swedish politicians, Lindh, a mother of two, was not accompanied by bodyguards, a fact that drew the ire of Swedish editorialists on Thursday.
”When a leading politician in such a critical political situation can move about in Stockholm city without a bodyguard, someone has drawn the wrong conclusion,” Sweden’s leading daily Dagens Nyheter blasted.
”The days should be gone when security police can leave a Cabinet minister without protection, especially during a controversial period in politics which stirs up a lot of emotion,” Svenska Dagbladet said in a reference to the euro campaign.
Police said they had had no indication of any threats against Lindh before the incident.
Lindh was one of the ”yes” camp’s most visible campaigners in the referendum campaign, criss-crossing the country and making regular media appearances.
According to witness accounts quoted in Swedish media, the attacker was covered in blood as he ran from the scene, leaving behind the knife he had used in the assault, a baseball cap and a sweatshirt.
He was identified only as being around 1,8m tall and wearing a military camouflage jacket. — Sapa-AFP