On Tuesday, a Danish court ordered 21 months to life imprisonment for murderous inventor Peter Madsen for his ill-fated escape from prison last year.
Madsen, 50, was convicted of his brief escape on October 20 from the Herstedvester prison in Denmark outside Copenhagen, where he was serving a life sentence for the murder of journalist Kim Wall in 2017, after inviting her aboard his Nautilus 60-foot UC3 for an interview, tabloid Ekstra Bladet reported.
Madsen told the Glostrup City Court that he escaped from prison after starting planning his escape in March 2019 due to the poor conditions of prisoners serving life sentences.
Authorities said Madsen – who admitted to dismembering Wall, 30, but denied murdering her – was armed with a pistol and fake explosives during his escape, which lasted just five minutes.
He threatened a prison psychologist and a police officer with a plaster imitation pistol, the newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Madsen also had a “fake” explosive belt with him at the time, consisting of brushes, wires and other materials made to look like the real thing, according to the report.
In addition to the 21-month sentence, Madsen was also ordered to pay damages to the prison psychologist he threatened to kill during his escape attempt, which ended less than half a mile from prison.
Madsen claimed that Wall died from inhaling toxic gases on his custom-made submarine, but prosecutors insisted that he tortured the journalist for violent sexual fantasies after luring her aboard the vessel.
Prosecutors said the self-taught engineer who later lost his appeal in Wall’s murder had fantasies of spitting on women, Ekstra Bladet reported. Evidence at the trial showed that Wall’s body had also been impaled.
The journalist’s dismembered torso was discovered days later in the waters off Copenhagen, while other parts of the body tucked into heavy bags were recovered in the following months.
Madsen was transferred to a high-security prison in Falster, reported Ekstra Bladet.
Life sentences in Denmark typically amount to 16 years in prison, but prisoners can be held longer if they are considered a threat to society.
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