“Yes, that would be sensational!” – Has the murder of Sweden’s Prime Minister Palme been solved?
For over 30 years, the Swedes have not known who shot their Prime Minister Olof Palme. This could change soon.
Great grief in 1986 in Stockholm Picture: EPA / TT NEWS AGENCY
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It remains a national trauma for the Swedes 34 years after the fact: On 28 February 1986, her then head of government Olof Palme was murdered on the way home from the cinema in Stockholm on the open road.
A prime suspect was found guilty three years after the fatal shots and then acquitted. The palm tree murder has still not been solved – but something could change in the end.
After almost three and a half decades, things got moving again: New tracks have caused the responsible public prosecutor Krister Petersson to publicly announce on Swedish television: «I am confident that I can present what happened and who happened around the murder is responsible for it. »
In the first half of 2020, he either wanted to file charges or stop preliminary investigations, he said in Swedish on the show “Veckans Brott”, a kind of “file number XY … unresolved”. Head of search Hans Melander followed on Tuesday, believing that a solution to the murder case could be presented: “I think we will succeed, yes.”
Olof palm tree Image: KEYSTONE
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For the Swedes, all of this comes off-screen. Many of them have long since resigned themselves to the fact that the most important criminal case in the history of their country will remain unsolved. An indictment 34 years after the palm tree murder – if it comes – would be the news of the year for the Scandinavian country. “Yes, that would be sensational, you have to say that,” said Petersson himself.
Shot from behind
The palm tree murder happened on the cold winter evening of February 28, 1986. The Social Democrat, then Prime Minister for almost three and a half years after having held this position from 1969 to 1976, came out of the cinema that Friday with his wife Lisbet.
The couple watched the Swedish comedy “Bröderna Mozart” (The Mozart Brothers) and walked home over the Sveavägen in downtown Stockholm without personal protection. At 11:21 p.m. two shots are fired at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.
The crime scene Picture: AP / Tt News Agency
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Palm tree is shot from behind, less than half an hour later he is officially declared dead in the hospital. His wife survives slightly injured after being hit by the second bullet.
The investigation into the crime then gets off to a slow start – a fact that the Swedes have harshly criticized to this day. At first, a man is suspected that the Swedish media only call “the 33-year-old”. After a short detention, he is released.
Another trail leads the investigators to the Kurdish PKK, which the Palmes government has classified as a terrorist organization, another year later to South Africa, whose apartheid regime had branded Palm. Again and again there is talk of a conspiracy within the Swedish police authorities, right-wing radicals are also considered to be possible perpetrators.
Acquittal for lack of evidence
However, no trace is as concrete as that of Christer Pettersson, who just happens to be called something like today’s Palme public prosecutor. The drug addicted and convicted man was arrested in late 1988 and identified as a perpetrator by Lisbet Palme. He is later convicted of a murder by a court, but is acquitted again in an appeal process due to the lack of flawless evidence. He died in 2004.
Who was it? About Christer Pettersson, number 3? Picture: EPA / TT NEWS AGENCY / POLICE HANDOUT
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The palm investigation has taken hundreds of millions of Swedish kronor over the years. Several traces and theories are checked and dropped again. Around 130 people confess to the murder, and new traces, witnesses and clues appear again and again – mostly as this time just before the anniversary of the crime.
But is there still a breakthrough? Petersson has been responsible for the investigations since 2017. Since his surprising testimony of February 18, Sweden has been puzzled by what specific trace the investigators may have discovered. Have today’s technical possibilities brought new light to the case? Was the murder weapon found?
Petersson’s information suggests to palm tree expert Thomas Ladegaard that the police may now know what exactly happened on Sveavägen. “In that case, it would be a massive breakthrough,” says the Dane, who published a book in 2016 about the palm tree murder.
But at the same time he restricts himself: “Over the years we have heard so many different announcements that it is difficult to remain optimistic.”
“Everyone wants an answer”
The newspaper “Expressen” believes to know that the hottest lead leads to the suspicious “Skandiamann”, who worked near the crime scene at the time of the murder, was said to have had access to weapons and hated Palme’s politics. The problem with this: the man died in 2000 – and dead people cannot be charged.
The hopes for a final investigation success are – once again – high in Sweden. Palme’s son Mårten spoke of “good news”, but made it clear that he did not know what Petersson’s new information was about.
Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told the Swedish media that he believed that “the whole country and of course the family” longed for answers. «We no longer need theories and conjectures. Everyone wants an answer. » (Aeg / SDA / dpa)
