A Danish inventor denied murdering the Swedish journalist Kim Wall on his homemade submarine as he took to the stand on the first day of his trial in Copenhagen. “I deny that I am guilty of the murder of Kim Wall,” Peter Madsen said, having earlier entered a not guilty plea via his lawyer, Betina Hald Engmark. “There is nothing worse that can happen to a person like me than to sail out with another person and return alone.”

Under questioning by the prosecution, Madsen said he had offered shifting explanations for what happened because he wanted to spare Wall’s relatives details of her death. Madsen initially told authorities he had dropped Wall off on a Copenhagen island several hours into their submarine trip in August. Then he said that Wall died accidentally inside the submarine while he was on deck during the excursion – a claim he repeated on Thursday without elaborating.(theguardian)…[+]