Updated
Danish inventor Peter Madsen is on trial in Copenhagen for allegedly killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall during a trip on his homebuilt submarine last August.
He faces charges including murder, dismemberment and sexual assault without intercourse of a particularly dangerous nature.
Mr Madsen admits cutting up her body and "burying her at sea", but denies murdering or sexually assaulting Wall.
He maintains she died accidently inside his UC3 Nautilus submarine while he was on deck — but changed his version of events several times.
After saying a hatch fell on her head, he instead said she had been killed by carbon monoxide poisoning inside the submarine.
Who was Kim Wall?
The 30-year-old freelance journalist studied at Paris' Sorbonne university, the London School of Economics and Columbia University in New York, from where she graduated with a master's degree in journalism in 2013.
She wrote for The New York Times, The Guardian and other publications, reporting on topics such as tourism in post-earthquake Haiti and nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.
Her website states she is a Swedish journalist based in New York and China, and her recent Instagram posts were geotagged to various locations in Sweden and China.
She was researching a story on the entrepreneur and aerospace engineer before she was reported missing by her boyfriend, and was last seen boarding Mr Madsen's 17-metre submarine, UC3 Nautilus, on August 10.
Her headless, limbless torso was found washed ashore in Copenhagen later that month, and other parts of her body were found separately in the months after.
The cause of Wall's death is yet to be determined, but the prosecutors said she died by strangulation or cutting of her throat.
Who is Peter Madsen?
Mr Madsen is a well-known figure in Denmark and calls himself an "inventrepreneur".
He built three submarines, but UC3 Nautilus is reportedly the largest privately-built submarine in the world. It could carry eight people and weighed 40 tonnes fully equipped.
He also runs the Rocket-Madsens Space Laboratory, or RML Spacelab, which aims at "launching a human being into outer space and bringing him safely back to Earth".
Mr Madsen was arrested on suspicion of negligent manslaughter after he was rescued from the submarine when it started sinking off Copenhagen last August.
A Copenhagen court had ordered a psychiatric evaluation and that Mr Madsen be kept in custody for four weeks.
The report concluded he was an intelligent man "with psychopathic tendencies" who had "no empathy or feelings of guilt", Jakob Buch-Jepsen, the prosecutor in the trial Copenhagen City Court, said.
Facts about the trial
Mr Buch-Jepsen said Wall's blood was found on the military-style bodysuit that Mr Madsen wore when he was arrested, and he also said that detectives found videos and texts about killing women on Mr Madsen's laptop and an external hard drive.
He showed the court underpants and pantyhoses — both damaged — and pieces of hair.
An audio file of a radio exchange between Mr Madsen and maritime officials from August 11 — the day after Mr Madsen and Wall embarked on their submarine trip — was also played.
In the recording, Mr Madsen said he had let Wall off on an island, and that there were no injured persons aboard but only technical problems.
Investigators found dried blood inside the submarine, and divers eventually found Wall's body parts in plastic bags held down on the Baltic Sea bed by metal pieces. Her torso had been stabbed multiple times.
Police said in October investigators had found 14 interior and exterior stab wounds to the journalist's genitals.
What are the potential outcomes?
Prosecutors would ask for a life sentence to be passed on Mr Madsen, which in Denmark is typically about 15 years without parole.
They also called for him to be held in "safe custody", which can imply indefinite imprisonment.
The prosecution also claimed Wall's murder was premeditated because Mr Madsen brought along tools he normally didn't take when sailing.
The trial at Copenhagen's City Court is due to run until April 25.
What are people saying about Madsen?
Politiken reporter Frank Hvilsom told TRT World that Mr Madsen was known as "inventive, creative, charismatic, offbeat, and also described as an anti-establishment celebrity".
Tom Niederreuther, a friend of Mr Madsen's, told BBC the situation was "really bizarre".
"He's been out there a lot with people; I've been sailing with him in that submarine obviously he had built," he said.
"I was out with him sailing and all that but what happened that particular day; I have absolutely no idea."
ABC/wires
Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, law-crime-and-justice, journalism, sexual-offences, courts-and-trials, denmark, sweden
First posted