A Copenhagen court is to rule Wednesday whether Danish submarine builder Peter Madsen murdered Swedish journalist Kim Wall onboard his vessel before chopping up her corpse and tossing the body parts into the sea last year.
The decision by one professional judge and two jurors is expected at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT), after 11 days of hearings unveiled the 47-year-old’s dark sexual fantasies involving beheaded and tortured women.
Prosecutors, who accuse the eccentric inventor of premeditated murder, aggravated sexual assault and desecrating a corpse, have called for a life sentence, which in Denmark averages around 16 years.
Madsen has admitted dismembering Wall’s body and throwing her remains overboard, an offence punishable by six months in prison, but denies killing her.
Prosecutor Jakob Buch-Jepsen said Madsen killed Wall, 30, as part of a macabre sexual fantasy and “tried to create the perfect crime”.
Madsen, however, said the freelancer who boarded his self-built submarine on August 10 to interview him died in an accident when the air pressure suddenly dropped and toxic fumes filled his vessel.
“I’m really, really sorry for what happened,” he told the court after the two sides presented their closing arguments on Monday.
Described by psychiatrists as a “perverse polymorph” with “psychopathic traits” who runs a “high risk” of being a repeat offender, Madsen is a semi-celebrity in Denmark known for his ambitious development of rockets and amateur space travel.
He described himself to friends as “a psychopath, but a loving one”.
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