Danish murderer who killed journalist on submarine 'escapes prison'

The Danish inventor jailed for the gory murder of a journalist on his home-made submarine was surrounded by snipers after trying to escape from prison today. 

Peter Madsen threatened guards by claiming he was carrying a bomb and brandishing a ‘pistol-like object’ during his escape attempt, local media says.   

He was later seen in the open, sitting upright by a roadside and surrounded by a massive police presence while wearing what looked like a belt, a few hundred yards from the prison in the Copenhagen suburbs. 

Snipers had their guns trained on Madsen on the cordoned-off street while police negotiators arrived to speak to the killer. 

Around three hours after his escape, police announced the stand-off was over and that Madsen had been arrested and driven away. 

Police dogs and bomb disposal experts equipped with a robot were on the scene as authorities tried to bring Madsen under control. 

There was also a van belonging to chemicals experts from Denmark’s emergency management agency as authorities assessed Madsen’s threat. 

The 49-year-old former engineer had earlier told police that he had an explosive device, according to BT.  

Witnesses described seeing guards sprinting down the residential street as the stand-off unfolded. 

One witness told Ekstra Bladet that Madsen had been wrestled out of a white police van and thrown to the ground amid shouting and screaming outside the prison.  

The newspaper said Madsen has previously been kept in isolation at the Herstedvester prison because guards suspected he would try to escape. 

After Danish authorities initially refused to confirm his identity, police told news agencies that the man involved in the stand-off was Madsen. 

The area remained blocked off after Madsen was driven away as police continued to investigate his escape. 

One witness told Politiken: ‘It’s horrible and strange that he has been able to escape from a prison where there are so many psychopaths.’  

Madsen’s lawyer told Danish media she knew nothing about his escape attempt.  

Madsen, 49, was sentenced to life in prison in 2018 for killing Swedish journalist Kim Wall who was sexually assaulted and dismembered on board his submarine.

Wall’s mutilated body was found in August 2017 after she boarded the home-made submarine in Copenhagen to research a piece on the eccentric inventor. 

Police divers then recovered a weighted-down bag containing her head, other body parts and her clothes. 

Madsen was rescued from waters between Denmark and Sweden shortly before his submarine sank. 

Investigators later recovered and searched the sunken submarine. 

Madsen changed his version of events several times, initially claiming Wall was alive and that he had dropped her off on a nearby island. 

He later said she had hit her head on the submarine’s hatch, before changing tack again and claiming that she was suffocated by an accidental gas leak.   

But forensic tests found that she had either been strangled or had her throat cut – and that around the time of her death, Madsen had stabbed her in her breasts and genitals with a knife or screwdriver. 

Danish judge Anette Burkoe said it was a ‘cynical and planned sexual assault and brutal murder of a random woman, who in connection with her journalistic work had accepted an offer to go sailing in the defendant’s submarine’.  

Life sentences in Denmark usually mean 16 years in prison, but convicts are reassessed to determine whether they would pose a danger to society if released.