Thread: Olof Palme murder

Olof Palme murder: Sweden believes it knows who killed PM in 1986

Olof Palme was assassinated on a Friday night walking down Sweden's busiest street
Swedish prosecutors have named the man who they say killed former Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986, ending years of mystery.

They said it was Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer known as "Skandia Man" who killed himself in 2000.

As a result they were closing the investigation into Palme's death, Chief Prosecutor Krister Petersson said.

Palme was shot in the back as he walked home from the cinema with his wife in Stockholm.

He had already dismissed his security team for the day. The assassination took place on Sweden's busiest road and more than a dozen witnesses saw a man fire the shots before fleeing the scene.

Palme's son Marten told Swedish radio that he believed prosecutors had reached the right conclusion and were right to close the case.

Thousands of people have been interviewed over Palme's death. A petty criminal was convicted of the killing but the verdict was later dismissed.

What did the prosecutor say?
"The person is Stig Engstrom," Mr Petersson told a news conference. "Because the person is dead, I cannot bring charges against him and have decided to close the investigation."

The murder weapon has not been found and no new forensic evidence has been uncovered, but prosecutors examining Engstrom's statements to police concluded that his version of events did not add up.

"How he acted was how we believe the murderer would have acted," Mr Petersson added.

Stig Engstrom had not initially been a focus for the investigation, the prosecutor said, but when investigators looked into his background they found he was accustomed to using weapons, having been in the army, and was a member of a shooting club.

In his local area he was also part of a circle of critics of Palme's policies and relatives said he had a negative view of the prime minister.

Engstrom also had long running financial problems and a growing problem with alcohol.

However investigators still did not have a "clear picture" of Engstrom's motive for killing Palme, Mr Petersson said.


The assassination shocked Sweden, and spawned countless conspiracy theories
Who was Stig Engstrom?
Stig Engstrom became known as Skandia Man as he had worked for the Skandia insurance company. He had been working late on the evening of the murder at the the firm's HQ close to the crime scene.

Engstrom was known to have been present at the scene of the murder. He was questioned by police several times but was quickly dismissed as a suspect.

Mr Petersson said witness descriptions of the gunman correlated with Engstrom's appearance and witnesses also contradicted Engstrom's own account of his movements at the scene.

Engstrom lied about the moments after the murder, even claiming he had tried to resuscitate Palme. He eventually killed himself in 2000.

He was first identified as a suspect by journalist Thomas Pettersson, and police started looking into Engstrom 18 years after his death.

Who assassinated this prime minister and why?

'New lead' in unsolved murder of Swedish PM

Stig Engstrom's ex-wife told Expressen newspaper in 2018 that she had been questioned by detectives in 2017. At the time she said the suspicion of his guilt was out of the question.

"He was too much of a coward. He wouldn't harm a fly," she said.

Sweden's current Prime Minister Stefan Lofven once described the failure to determine who killed Olof Palme as an "open wound" in Swedish society. But the announcement that prosecutors believe they've identified the killer might not be enough to heal decades of uncertainty surrounding the death of one of the country's most influential and globally recognised leaders.

With no new forensic evidence or links to a gun, many are asking why it took investigators so long to reach their conclusion, which was largely the result of combing through witness statements taken from Stig Engstrom and others at the scene. Others are angry that the suspect, who died in 2000, will never be brought to justice.

For journalists following the story, the long, dry, news conference to announce the findings came as a flat ending to decades of wide-ranging theories about the assassination and claims in one Swedish tabloid this week that the killer's weapon had been traced. But the chief prosecutor told one reporter he wasn't "stupid enough" to believe that their conclusions would put an end to the conspiracies.

How was Olof Palme murdered?
The Swedish prime minister had discharged his guards on a Friday night on 28 February 1986 and had gone to the cinema with his wife Lisbet, their son Marten and his girlfriend.

Walking with his wife after the film on Stockholm's busiest street, Sveavagen, they were attacked by a gunman from behind.

Palme, 59, was shot in the back and died instantly. Bullets were recovered at the scene from a .357 Magnum handgun, but the gun was never found.

Why was no-one caught?
One man did go to jail. Convicted criminal Christer Pettersson - who has no connection to the prosecutor - was identified in a line-up by Lisbet Palme and jailed for life in 1989.

But he was quickly released on appeal as no motive had been established and no weapon retrieved. Pettersson died in 2004.

More than 130 people have confessed to the murder, the head of the investigation Hans Melander said.

Who were Palme's enemies?
A charismatic prime minister who led Sweden's Social Democratic party, Palme was also outspoken on several international issues.

At home he had infuriated business owners with reforms and spoken out against nuclear power.

He was critical of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the US bombing of North Vietnam and had attacked South Africa's "gruesome" regime of apartheid.

What theories have there been?
The case has dogged Swedish police for decades. For years it obsessed renowned author Stieg Larsson, who wrote The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Among the theories put forward over the years, Palme was assassinated because:

He stood up against apartheid and funded the African National Congress (ANC) - Swedish police travelled to South Africa in 1996 to investigate the claim

Palme had discovered that Swedish arms firm Bofors had used bribery to set up an Indian weapons deal

Palme's government had declared the Kurdish militant PKK group terrorists

Lisbet Palme died in 2018 without knowing conclusively who murdered her husband.

Olof Palme murder: Sweden believes it knows who killed PM in 1986 - BBC News

That's convenient, no Burmese labourers in Sweden?

Originally Posted by jabir

no Burmese labourers in Sweden?

A dead guy will do.

There is a lot to this case that smells and a whole lot of different theories.

I can understand that they need to put the case to rest though

Originally Posted by helge

A dead guy will do.

It has taken few years to find a "plausible" solution. Not following the well-proven methods as practised in other country (please no names here), where it does not take so long (but the commission report does)...

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Not following the well-proven methods as practised in other country (please no names here), where it does not take so long (but the commission report does)...

Thanks for clearing that up.

^You are welcome... (as usually)

^yawn...

The Chinese secret service murders a world leader and all you can do is yawn?

^Yawning on your "original" and fresh "jokes"...

Originally Posted by panama hat

China's Ministry of State Security confirmed this years ago but then retracted their confession after the Politbureau panicked at the leaked documents

This?

^Did you make a subscription for the picture? To get it every day? How witty...

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Did you make a subscription for the picture?

No

Originally Posted by Klondyke

To get it every day?

I share it with you

Originally Posted by Klondyke

How witty...

Wittier than what you come up with

Originally Posted by helge

There is a lot to this case that smells and a whole lot of different theories.

I think that many will agree with you (but there might be few exceptions, especially here on TD).

And you as a fellow country man of the famous man (what was his name?) who said: "Something is rotten (fishy) in the state of Denmark." (or did the old Shaky got it wrong?)

Originally Posted by Klondyke

And you as a fellow country man of the famous man (what was his name?) who said: "Something is rotten (fishy) in the state of Denmark." (or did the old Shaky got it wrong?)

Shakespeare was English and Helge is Danish . . . can you get anything right?

I thought it was accepted that the jaarpie intelligence service was responsible for the assassination

Originally Posted by panama hat

Shakespeare was English and Helge is Danish

Oh, really?

Originally Posted by panama hat

Shakespeare was English and Helge is Danish . . . can you get anything right?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Oh, really?

Originally Posted by Klondyke

And you as a fellow country man of the famous man (what was his name?) who said:

Are you really that thick? <again insert rhetorical status here> Helge is NOT a countryman of Shakespeare, as you state.

Dense

Originally Posted by panama hat

Are you really that thick? <again insert rhetorical status here> Helge is NOT a countryman of Shakespeare, as you state.

Oh, really? (Sorry that you wrongly understood the meaning due to my poor English, that was another famous man who said that - not Shaky - but don't worry about that, Helge surely knows his Pappenheimers...)

Wasn't Palme a huge supporter of the Palestinian cause?

Originally Posted by SKkin

Wasn't Palme a huge supporter of the Palestinian cause?

Yes. Read the wiki article about him, he was a remarkable man.

^

On the international scene, Palme was a widely recognised political figure because of his:

harsh and emotional criticism of the United States over the Vietnam War;
vocal opposition to the crushing of the Prague Spring by the Soviet Union;
criticism of European Communist regimes, including labeling the Husák regime as "The Cattle of Dictatorship" (Swedish: "Diktaturens kreatur") in 1975;
campaigning against nuclear weapons proliferation;

criticism of the Franco Regime in Spain, calling the regime "goddamn murderers" (Swedish: "satans mördare"; see Swedish profanity) after its

execution of ETA and FRAP militants in September 1975;

opposition to apartheid, branding it as "a particularly gruesome system", and support for economic sanctions against South Africa;
support, both political and financial, for the African National Congress (ANC), the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the POLISARIO Front;

visiting Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1975, during which he denounced Fulgencio Batista's government and praised contemporary Cuban revolutionaries;
strong criticism of the Pinochet regime in Chile;

support, both political and financial, for the FMLN-FDR in El Salvador and the FSLN in Nicaragua; and,

role as a mediator in the Iran–Iraq War.

All of this ensured that Palme had many opponents as well as many friends abroad.[32]

On 21 February 1968, Palme (then Minister of Education) participated in a protest in Stockholm against U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam together with the North Vietnamese ambassador to the Soviet Union, Nguyễn Thọ Chân. The protest was organized by the Swedish Committee for Vietnam and Palme and Nguyen were both invited as speakers. As a result of this, the U.S. recalled its Ambassador from Sweden and Palme was fiercely criticised by the opposition for his participation in the protest.[33]

On 23 December 1972, Palme (then Prime Minister) made a speech on Swedish national radio where he compared the ongoing U.S. bombings of Hanoi to historical atrocities, namely the bombing of Guernica, the massacres of Oradour-sur-Glane, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice and Sharpeville, and the extermination of Jews and other groups at Treblinka. The US government called the comparison a "gross insult" and once again decided to freeze its diplomatic relations with Sweden (this time the freeze lasted for over a year).[33]

Olof Palme - Wikipedia

^ & ^^ Sounds like he made a lot of enemies...

Originally Posted by Klondyke

Sorry that you wrongly understood the meaning

I didn't "wrongly" understand. You "wrongly" wrote.