The Blog of Death

Anna Lindh

Anna Lindh, Sweden's foreign minister, died on Sept. 11 after being stabbed by an unknown assailant. She was 46.

Lindh was shopping with a friend at an upscale, Stockholm department store when a man wearing an army camouflage jacket approached and stabbed her several times. She died at the hospital from internal bleeding and liver damage.

Since her early 20s, Lindh has been an active Social Democrat. A lawyer and environmental campaigner, she joined the Swedish parliament in 1982 and became chair of the party's youth league. In 1994, she was given her first cabinet post as minister for the environment, and was named the country's foreign minister four years later.

Lindh was strongly in favor of adopting the euro, and consistently campaigned on human rights issues. Just days before her death, she spoke out against the U.S., Israel and Yassir Arafat over the crisis in the Middle East. Political analysts say Lindh could have become the country's prime minister if she had lived. Lindh was married to Bo Holmberg, a local politician.