A Copenhagen court on Tuesday issued a 21-month prison sentence for Peter Madsen, a Danish inventor convicted of the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall in 2017 for an attempt to escape from prison last year.
Madsen had already received a life sentence in 2018 for the murder and dismemberment of Mrs. Wall on board her submarine, a horrible murder that shocked Denmark.
Last October, Madsen escaped from Herstedvester Prison on the western outskirts of Copenhagen, a prison escape captured in sensational images on live TV. Using a fake gun and wearing a fake explosive belt, he threatened prison officials and walked about 800 meters outside the prison walls, before being captured by armed police. Images of his capture also showed onlookers at the scene shouting profanity at Madsen.
In Tuesday’s sentence at the Glostrup City Court outside Copenhagen, Madsen was also ordered to pay about 20,000 crowns, or about $ 3,200, to a psychologist he threatened to kill during his escape attempt. according to Ekstra Bladet, a Danish tabloid.
Madsen accepted the result, the court said. Madsen said he decided to flee because he found the conditions in the prison intolerable and that he was desperate after having refused his partner’s visits.
Inmates who are sentenced to life in prison in Denmark may be eligible for parole after 12 years. Madsen’s sentence on Tuesday is likely to be part of future considerations for early release. After the escape attempt, he was transferred to Storstrom prison, a high security facility.
Wall, 30, disappeared after boarding Madsen’s homemade submarine to interview the inventor in August 2017. His torso was later discovered on a beach in Copenhagen and Madsen gave conflicting reports of his whereabouts before finally admitting that he had dismembered his body. He was later charged with Mrs. Wall’s premeditated murder.
Despite a short career, Wall has established herself as a creative and determined journalist, reporting for vehicles like The New York Times. She grew up in Trelleborg, Sweden, and graduated from the London School of Economics, earning two master’s degrees from Columbia University. She embarked on a worldwide career and reported in countries like Cuba, Sri Lanka and Uganda. She was days away from moving to Beijing with her boyfriend before her death.
“I want to know how the world works,” she wrote to a newspaper in Sweden in 2011, “and I hope that one day I can learn enough to make a difference”.
A TV series, “The Investigation”, which makes a fiction of the work of the police and detectives in the case, was launched last year.