Danish inventor blames '˜drop in pressure' for journalist's death

Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen outside the Copenhagen court. Picture: Ritzau Scanpix / Mads Claus Rasmussen / Denmark OUTMADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/AFP/Getty Images

The Danish inventor accused of torturing and killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall during a private submarine trip before dismembering her body is an intelligent man “with psychopathic tendencies,” a prosecutor said as the murder trial opened yesterday.

Peter Madsen, 47, was standing trial at Copenhagen City Court accused of torturing Wall, 30, before he either cut her throat or strangled her on his submarine in August.

The inventor is charged with murder, dismemberment and indecent handling of a corpse for the way he disposed of Wall’s body. He denies murder, but has admitted to dismembering her body before he “buried her at sea”.

Wall, a freelance journalist who wrote for the New York Times, the Guardian and other publications, embarked on Madsen’s submarine on 10 August to interview him. Her remains were found in plastic bags on the Baltic Sea bed weeks later, and her torso was found stabbed multiple times.

Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen started the 12-day trial by reading out the charges, describing in detail how Wall’s body parts were found on the ocean bed. He said a psychiatric report has concluded that Madsen has “no empathy or feelings of guilt”.

Madsen, wearing glasses, a dark shirt and jeans, listened quietly with his fists closed. Wall’s parents were also present at the trial.

Testifying, Madsen repeated his claim that Wall died accidentally inside the UC3 Nautilus while he was on deck. He said Wall “had a wonderful evening until it ended in an accident”, but denied that any sexual activity had taken place between them.

Madsen had offered shifting explanations for Wall’s death prior to the trial. He initially told authorities he had dropped Wall off on a Copenhagen island several hours into their submarine trip. Then he said that Wall died accidentally inside the submarine when a hatch fell and hit her on the head. Yesterday, he described how he found Wall lifeless after a sudden pressure problem in the submarine.

“I could not open the hatches. I heard Kim, it was not good,” he said. He added that he tried to give her first aid when he finally reached her, but stopped because it was impossible to stay inside.

“There was a risk of having a submarine with two deaths,” he told the court.

The prosecution claims Wall’s murder was premeditated because Madsen brought along tools he normally didn’t take when sailing.

Buch-Jepsen said the cause of Wall’s death has yet not been established. But he said Wall’s blood was found on Madsen’s nose and his bodysuit, and he also said that detectives found violent videos and texts about killing women on Madsen’s laptop and an external hard drive.

Members of the court were shown a drawing of the multiple stabs wounds to Wall’s torso. An audio file of a radio exchange between Madsen and maritime officials from the day after Madsen and Wall embarked on their submarine trip was also played. In the recording, Madsen said he had let Wall off on an island, and that there were no injured persons aboard but only technical problems.