A Danish inventor has told a court that Swedish journalist Kim Wall died when she was accidentally hit by a hatch cover on his submarine.
Appearing in court on Tuesday, Peter Madsen testified that he had been holding the heavy hatch cover of the vessel when it slipped and hit Ms Wall’s head last month. A court heard Mr Madsen and Ms Wall were sailing in the strait between Denmark and Sweden at the time, the ABC reports.
“I lose my foothold and the hatch shuts,” the inventor told the Copenhagen court. He said the journalist was then knocked on the ground.
“There was a pool of blood where she had landed.”
Mr Madsen is charged with killing Ms Wall and mutilating her body, which he has denied.
Asked why he threw Ms Wall overboard, Madsen told the court: “”In the shock I was in, it was the right thing to do,” the BBC reports.
Ms Wall disappeared after she boarded Mr Madsen’s home-made submarine on August 10. Ms Wall’s boyfriend alerted police when the reporter didn’t arrive home, after boarding the ship for what was supposed to be just a few hours for a story.
Police identified the torso of a woman they found on August 21 in Danish waters, south of Copengagen, as Ms Wall.
The body was missing its head, arms and legs, which police say they are yet to locate.
The court ordered that Mr Madsen undertake a psychiatric evaluation and that he be kept in custody for four weeks.