Olof Palme/Assassination

 Olof Palme/Assassination(assassination)

Date	28 February 1986
Interest of	Lars Borgnäs, Ole Dammegård, Hans Holmér

Official Narrative

On 28 February 1986, Olof Palme was assassinated whilst walking home from a cinema with his wife. He died from gunshots fired by a single attacker. Police said that a taxi driver used his radio to raise the alarm. Two young girls sitting in a car close to the scene of the shooting also tried to help the prime minister. He was rushed to hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival at 00:06 Central European Time (CET) the next day.

The Official Narrative blames the assassination on a 'lone-nut' gunman. Two years later, Christer Pettersson, a small-time criminal and drug addict, was arrested, tried and convicted for Palme's murder. Pettersson's conviction was later overturned on appeal to the Svea Court of Appeal. The crime remains unsolved.

Alternative theories

Evidence is emerging that Palme's assassination was precipitated by his effective opposition to the policies of powerful geo-political interests, most notable of these being the US/UK arms trade (cf. the investigation by journalist/filmmaker Allan Francovich) and the South African Apartheid Regime as set out in the section Eliminated by Apartheid? below.

Apartheid South Africa

Olof Palme: Eliminated by Apartheid South Africa?

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Olof Palme was killed on the orders of South African President P W Botha's State Security Council (SSC), whose sub-committee member Craig Williamson admitted being the person responsible on the SSC for "target selection". According to Swedish investigative journalist Stieg Larsson, Craig Williamson orchestrated Palme's murder and mercenary Bertil Wedin carried it out. Williamson was granted amnesty for a number of crimes he committed during the apartheid era, but has never applied for amnesty in respect of the murders of Olof Palme, Samora Machel or Bernt Carlsson.

On 21 February 1986, Olof Palme made the keynote speech at the opening session of the 'Swedish People's Parliament Against Apartheid' which was held in Stockholm and attended by hundreds of anti-apartheid sympathisers as well as leaders and officials from the ANC such as Oliver Tambo. In his speech, Olof Palme declared: "Apartheid cannot be reformed, it has to be eliminated" (reproduced in a 1986 poster by Cuban artist Rafael Enriquez). One week later, on 28 February 1986, Olof Palme was fatally wounded by gunshots while walking home from a cinema in central Stockholm with his wife Lisbet Palme, who was shot in the shoulder.

Olof Palme's protégé and political ally, Bernt Carlsson, appointed UN Commissioner for Namibia in 1987, was killed when Pan Am Flight 103 was sabotaged over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988. Carlsson was en route to the signing ceremony at UN headquarters of the Namibia Independence Agreement the following day.

Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela chose Sweden as his first port of call in Europe because of all the support the ANC had received over many years from the Swedish government, especially from Olof Palme. Ingvar Carlsson, the new prime minister, invited British politicians Neil and Glenys Kinnock to come to Stockholm in April 1990 and greet Mr Mandela. That meeting was recalled by Neil Kinnock in a television interview on 8 December 2013 (three days after Nelson Mandela's death).

2014 Revelations

In February 2014, the Swedish Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper revealed its findings after a report that South Africa lay behind the assassination of Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme. Novellist and journalist Stieg Larsson's long-term partner Ewa Gabrielsson had provided Dagbladet with 15 boxes of material that Larsson had compiled on his quest to solve the murder. Much of the paperwork focused on Cyprus-based Swede Bertil Wedin, with documents stating that the suspected mercenary may have been in contact with South African security services in the run up to the murder of the fierce anti-apartheid critic Palme. SvD reported that Wedin had confessed four years before the murder in a British court case that he had been in touch with South African agent Craig Williamson.

Building upon the Dagbladet story, the BBC Radio 4 programme "Document" of 28 July 2014 - presented by Gordon Corera - supported the South African narrative for Olof Palme's assassination. Corera cited the following as potentially being implicated in Palme's murder:

• Peter Caselton
• Eugene de Kock
• Bertil Wedin &
• Craig Williamson

The accusers were Edward Aspinall, Peter Calcara, Duncan Campbell, Gerry Gable, Barry Gilder, Stieg Larsson, Guardian journalist David Leigh, Tor Sellström and Jan Stoklasa.

Western Intelligence agencies

Trowbridge H. Ford has claimed that Palme was assassinated in partly due to the effectiveness of his opposition to arms deals, and that the assassination went according to plan, the "British and American intelligence services having completely hoodwinked their Swedish counterparts".

Palme, the documentary

Olof Palme as depicted in the 2012 film Palme

Palme is a Swedish documentary film premiered in Sweden on 14 September 2012 and written by Maud Nycander and Kristina Lindström. The film is a biographical portrait of the former prime minister Olof Palme, and covers his life from childhood to the role as a leading figure of Swedish politics. On general release in 2012, it has been shown as a 103-minute long feature film, and as a 175-minute long TV-movie in three parts on SVT at Christmas and New Year.

Plot

On Friday evening, February 28, 1986 Olof Palme was shot dead in the street. The day after, the news reached out to the people that the country's prime minister was dead, and the whole country found itself suddenly shocked.

In the film, one can follow Palme's life from youth until he is murdered. His long career in the Swedish Social Democratic Party is also shown. Other subjects that the film also treats are more controversial topics, for example the situation with the IB affair. The film focuses on the person Olof Palme, as in almost 26 years has been overshadowed by his sudden death. It contains material from the Palme family that has never been shown in public, private snapshots and family movies.

 

A Olof Palme/Assassination victim on Wikispooks

Title	Description
Olof Palme	Leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969, and two-term Prime Minister, until his assassination in 1986.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Ames and Hanssen Driven to Spy by Reckless Double Agent Operations	essay	2003	Trowbridge Ford
Document:Gordon Corera travels to Stockholm to investigate the assassination of a prime minister	Radio programme	28 July 2014	Gordon Corera	In 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)
Document:Olof Palme - The Man Who Played With Fire	book review	2020	Simon Matthews	Bernt Carlsson, a colleague of Olof Palme’s and UN Commissioner for Namibia 1987-1988, died in the Lockerbie bombing on 21 December 1988. Carlsson's presence on Pan Am Flight 103 has been cited as the reason it was bombed.
Document:Olof Palme — South African Spies Likely Murdered Sweden Prime Minister	Article	12 March 2018	Ludwig De Braeckeleer	Top Secret Apartheid Intelligence Report says that Olof Palme must “now be seen as an enemy of the State”

 

The Official Culprits

Name	Description
Stig Engström	Eyewitness of the assassination in February 1986 of Olof Palme
Christer Pettersson	A "lone nut" who was imprisoned for the murder of Olof Palme, but released on appeal in light of the lack of evidence.

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