The man who killed Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in 2003 has told a Swedish newspaper he faked mental illness during his trial in an attempt to get a less severe sentence.

Mijailo Mijailovic is quoted as telling daily Expressen that his knife attack on Lindh in a Stockholm department store was motivated by a hatred of politicians, whom he blamed for his own failings in life.

His earlier claim that voices in his head had encouraged him to stab Lindh was an attempt to receive psychiatric care instead of a prison sentence, the 32-year-old told the newspaper.

An appeals court sentenced him to psychiatric care, but the Swedish Supreme Court later overturned the ruling and gave him life imprisonment.