View source for Document:Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate the assassination of a prime minister

{{Document
|publication_date=28 July 2014
|type=Radio programme
|source_name=BBC Radio 4
|source_URL=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b04bn28m
|authors=Gordon Corera
|subjects=Stieg Larsson, Jan Stocklassa, Olof Palme/Assassination, Bertil Wedin, Craig Williamson
|image=Corera_Palme.jpg
|image_width=300px
|image_caption=
|description=In [[BBC|BBC Radio 4]]'s investigative history series - 'Document' - [[Gordon Corera]] investigates the assassination of the [[Swedish]] prime minister [[Olof Palme]] and explores what [[Britain]] knew, starting with boxes of documents including papers written by the late [[Stieg Larsson]] (deceased 9 November 2004)
}}
[[BBC]] security correspondent [[Gordon Corera]] started by speaking to businessman, journalist and former diplomat [[Jan Stocklassa]], who had been entrusted with best-selling author [[Stieg Larsson]]'s extensive collection of documents and papers relating to [[Olof Palme]]'s [[Olof Palme/Assassination|assassination]]. In January 2013 Stocklassa was told where to find the 25 or 30 boxes of documents ("on the outskirts of [[Stockholm]] in one of those rented storage spaces") representing years of research by [[Stieg Larsson|Larsson]] into the killing.

[[Stieg Larsson|Larsson]]'s research led him to believe that apartheid [[South Africa]] was involved in the assassination and that the Swede [[Bertil Wedin]], a SA agent who worked for [[BOSS]], may have carried it out. [[Bertil Wedin|Wedin]] who has lived in North Cyprus since 1985 refused to be interviewed by [[Gordon Corera]] but had previously spoken to [[Jan Stocklassa]]. Although [[Bertil Wedin|Wedin]] denied any involvement, he agreed that he had worked in [[London]] for the apartheid regime. A newspaper editor had put [[Bertil Wedin]] in contact with SA 'superspy' [[Craig Williamson]] in 1980, and he was paid £1,000 per month "to gather 'legal' information".

[[Gordon Corera|Corera]] interviewed Carl G. Holm, editor of the anti-communist magazine ''Contra''.<ref>''[https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-57851%22]} "CASE OF HOLM v. SWEDEN"]''</ref> Holm said he had known [[Bertil Wedin]] for forty years and there was "zero chance" that Wedin did it: "He is an honourable man". Anti-apartheid activist [[Tor Sellström]] begged to differ on [[Bertil Wedin]] being responsible for the crime.

[[Gordon Corera]] returned to London and spoke to investigative journalist [[Duncan Campbell]], convicted burglar [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fZ-vCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=Edward+Aspinall+South+Africa&source=bl&ots=Q3ZrEt9-w5&sig=ACfU3U2ZUE7XBYluEAGbN8XJDLIHgZT9sQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZg-D34YbqAhUBQEEAHfGcAsYQ6AEwAnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Edward%20Aspinall%20South%20Africa&f=false Edward Aspinall,] ANC activist and Ambassador [https://twitter.com/bpgilder/ Barry Gilder,] political activist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Gable Gerry Gable] and ''Guardian'' journalist [[David Leigh]].

[[Duncan Campbell]] said he had written an article in the ''[[New Statesman]]'' in 1988 about South African involvement (with [[MI6]] knowledge) in the Palme assassination. At the time, there was a milieu in London of right-wing apartheid military personnel who told him that a [[South Africa]]n businessman (understood to be [[Peter Caselton]]) had been trying in 1985 to recruit a killer of [[Olof Palme]]. Convicted burglar of the ANC and PAC offices in London, Edward Aspinall, admitted that he was keeping in touch with both [[Peter Caselton]] and [[Craig Williamson]], and at the same time was passing information to [[MI5]]. Barry Gilder and Gerry Gable accepted that apartheid South Africa was indeed involved in the murder of [[Olof Palme]] and [[David Leigh]], who had investigated MI5 links with the South Africans in the 1980s, believed that [[NATO]]'s relationship with the apartheid regime meant "turning a blind eye" to what it was doing.

==Postscript==
It was not until 2019, five years after the [[Gordon Corera]] programme, when [[Jan Stocklassa]]'s book "The Man Who Played With Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin" was published<ref>''[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1542092949/ "The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin"]''</ref> that an [[Iran-Contra]] link was introduced to the [[Olof Palme]] murder investigation.<ref>''[[Document:Olof Palme - The Man Who Played With Fire]]''</ref>  

==References==
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