Danish inventor Peter Madsen pleaded not guilty to murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard his submarine last August, but acknowledged indecent handling of her corpse, as his trial began in Copenhagen on Thursday.
Madsen faces charges of premeditated murder, indecent handling of a corpse and “sexual relations other than intercourse of a particularly dangerous nature,” citing stab wounds inside and outside Wall’s genital area.
Wall, a promising 30-year-old journalist, was last seen after boarding Madsen’s UC3 Nautilus on August 10 last year when she had planned to interview him for an upcoming article.
Instead, according to the indictment, Madsen stabbed Wall multiple times before killing her, cutting off her head, arms and legs, then weighing her body parts down with plastic cable-ties and pipes before throwing them into the sea.
Her torso washed up on August 21 on an island near Copenhagen. Her head and legs were found weeks later.
Evidence against Madsen revealed
On Thursday, prosecutor Jacob Buch-Jepsen told the court that more than 215 witnesses had been questioned while the police had received more than 1,000 tips in relation to Wall’s death.
The court heard that Madsen was questioned the day after Wall vanished. Police found fresh scratches on his arms and dried blood on his left nostril, which was later confirmed to belong to the missing journalist, Buch-Jepsen said.
Madsen, known as “Rocket-Madsen” in Denmark for his eccentric inventions and strong passion for ocean and space travel, originally claimed he had dropped Wall off on land on the night of August 10, according to a police statement.
He later claimed she accidentally died of carbon monoxide poisoning and, in an panic, he dismembered her body and tossed it into the sea.
But as authorities continued examining how Wall died, more damaging evidence against Madsen emerged.
Among other things, the court heard Thursday that police found Madsen had searched the Internet for beheadings. Police found videos of torture and real-life executions of women on his computer and hard drives.
Madsen has consistently denied the allegations of murder and sexual assault and any knowledge of the videos.
His attorney, Betina Hald Engmark, has said it cannot be excluded that her death was an accident and that Madsen did act in a state of panic.
Wall graduated from Columbia University and the London School of Economics and was based in Beijing and New York. At the time of her death, the journalist’s work had appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian and Time magazine, among other publications.
In her opening remarks, defense attorney Betina Hald Engmark asked the court to put aside the extensive press coverage of the case.
