Police detain Lindh suspect

Lindh's murder has shocked the whole of Sweden

Swedish police say they have detained a man wanted in connection with the killing of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.

The man, who has not yet been identified, was apprehended at about 2100 (1900 GMT) in a restaurant near the Rasunda football stadium in Solna, a suburb of the capital, Stockholm.

He has been taken in for questioning, police spokeswoman Stina Wessling said.

Ms Wessling said that the man taken into custody is the same person that police issued an arrest warrant for earlier in the day.

Police have refused to say if the suspect is the man in a baseball cap seen on closed circuit television in the Stockholm department store where Ms Lindh was stabbed to death last week.

Police under pressure

Ms Lindh was stabbed in a Stockholm department store last Wednesday and died in hospital the next morning.

Click here for Anna Lindh's life in pictures

The murder shocked a country used to seeing its leading politicians travel without bodyguards.

Police have been under massive pressure to find the culprit and had put out a nationwide alert in a bid to track him down.

They are anxious to avoid a repeat of the failure to solve the 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme, which happened only a few blocks away from the scene of the Ms Lindh murder.

In that case, the murder weapon was never found and a man convicted was freed on appeal.

Tributes

Our correspondent says that DNA evidence found on clothing discarded by Ms Lindh's killer should help to link any suspect with the crime.

Earlier, tributes were paid to Ms Lindh in parliament.

The speaker of parliament said her killing had sent an "ice-cold wind" through the country.

"The cold from that wind still has us in its grip. But despite the dark that has happened, her memory should be bright," Bjorn von Sydow said.

International leaders are expected to gather in Stockholm on Friday for a formal memorial service for Ms Lindh. A private funeral will be held later.