Peter Madsen: Danish submarine murderer ‘tries to escape prison’
Danish murderer Peter Madsen has tried to escape prison in Denmark by threatening guards with “a fake bomb” and “pistol-like object”, according to local media reports.
Madsen was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 for murdering and dismembering the Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his hand-built submarine.
Video footage obtained by the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet showed Madsen sitting on the ground a few hundred metres outside the Herstedvester prison on the outskirts of Copenhagen with a “belt-like object” around his stomach.
The newspaper said he may have also used a “pistol-like object” to get past the prison guards and make his way outside – sparking a stand-off with the authorities.
Police snipers and bomb disposal experts arrived at the scene shortly after 10am, according to The Copenhagen Post.
Psychiatrist Henrik Day Poulsen told the Danish newspaper BT: “He is a gifted man, but also a man who is incredibly dangerous.
“We are dealing with a man who has committed one of the most bestial murders in Danish history, and precisely because he can use his talent for something dangerous, it is very worrying that people do not take better care of him.”
In April 2018 Madsen was found guilty of murder, sexual assault and the defilement of a corpse.
Judge Anette Burkoe said he had not given a “trustworthy” explanation, after he claimed Ms Wall died accidentally while inside his submarine. Madsen initially denied dismembering her, then confessed that he had done so and said he’d thrown her body parts into the Baltic Sea.
The precise cause of death has never been established but the court found Madsen “cut the body into pieces to hide what had happened”.
A self-taught engineer, Madsen built rockets in his spare time and launched his own homemade UC3 Nautilus submarine in 2008.
Ms Wall had planned to interview Madsen for a story on a rocket program he founded in 2014, with the goal of building a crowdfunded rocket to launch himself into space.
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