Police find submarine empty in hunt for missing journalist
The Swedish writer boarded the home-made vessel for a feature article on its inventor but she has not been seen since
A sunken, home-made submarine claimed to hold the body of a missing Swedish journalist has been found empty.
The submarine’s inventor, Peter Madsden, 46, had been accused of the manslaughter of Kim Wall, 30, after she met him to write a feature article on Thursday evening.
“The sub has been searched and there is nobody on board – dead nor alive,” the chief of Copenhagen’s homicide squad, Jens Moller, said yesterday.
Mr Madsen, who was rescued after the submarine sank, has been remanded in custody for 24 days.
He denies the allegation and says he dropped Wall off on the Refshaleoen island on Thursday evening after their interview.
The 18-metre submarine, the
Nautilus, was refloated and towed to the Copenhagen port on Saturday, then emptied of water overnight.
On Sunday police entered the sub and found it empty.
Nothing has been heard from Wall since she boarded the vessel with Mr Madsden.
Her boyfriend alerted police early on Friday that she had not returned home as she said she would.
Danish authorities then announced they were looking for the Nautilus in waters off Copenhagen.
The vessel was found in a bay in Koge, about 50 kilometres south of the Danish capital, around midday.
Just after it was found, Mr Madsen was rescued and the submarine suddenly sank. He said it had developed a problem with the ballast tank.
But Mr Moller said yesterday that it appeared it was a “deliberate action that caused the sub to sink”, amid media speculation that Mr Madsen may have been trying to cover up a crime.
“We’re still hoping that we’ll find Kim Wall alive, but we are preparing ourselves for the fact that she may not be,” he said.
Wall is a freelance journalist based in China and the US.
Her articles have appeared in The New York Times and The
Guardian, among others. Mr Madsen made headlines when he launched the Nautilus in 2008. It was at the time the world’s biggest homemade submarine.