- Bedeviled for over 34 years by the mysterious killing of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister who was shot in the back by an unknown assailant on a quiet Stockholm street, Sweden’s judiciary finally made its case on Wednesday.
At a news conference in Stockholm, the prosecutor Krister Petersson said that there was “reasonable evidence” that the assailant was Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer at an insurance company, who killed himself in 2000, at the age of 66. He added that only a court could rule on whether Mr. Engstrom was guilty or not, but that since the suspect is deceased, there would be no court case.
But the prosecutor said he could not rule out the possibility that Mr. Engstrom had acted as part of a larger conspiracy.
Mr. Palme was killed on a cold February night in 1986 after leaving a movie theater in Stockholm with his wife, Lisbeth. The assassination shocked Sweden and evolved into one of the country’s greatest mysteries.
No gun, no hard evidence, and really nothing new that didn't appear in the 2018 Filter article by Thomas Pettersson. All the "private investigators" in Sweden right now:
There is definitely a lot that makes him suspect and if the initial investigators had been competent they would have taken him into custody for questioning in 1986 instead of looking into what every Kurd in Stockholm was doing at the time. At the same time, there's a lot of questions left unanswered, most importantly why did Engström, a graphic designer, carry around a Magnum revolver at work? Just in case he would run into Palme? There was definitely widespread hatred of Palme in the right-wing Täby Moderates circles he was a part of, even viewing Palme as a class traitor, but was it enough to inspire a political assassination? One of my favorite conspiracy theories regarding the murder that ties in with Engström, was that it was carried out by elements of the "stay-behind" movement, the Swedish version of Operation Gladio, who thought Palme was getting too close to the Soviets. The leader of the movement, Alvar Lindencrona, was the CEO of insurance company Thule, which later became Skandia, where Engström worked. The stay-behind movement was set up by Tage Erlander, Palme's predecessor and mentor, giving some ironic flair to this theory. What really speaks against Engström being a part of a conspiracy is how much he kept appearing in the media afterwards, and even appearing as a witness in court twice in the defense of Christer Pettersson. You would think his would-be co-conspirators would be more able to rule him in. Also, why would you use a collector's piece like a .357 Magnum revolver for a planned murder that you would then have to get rid of? So I guess I believe Engström might have been the one who did it, even though I was expecting more from the investigation, and I'm still holding out hope that more facts or better forensic techniques will appear one day to definitively close the case.
The local press here in Finland has been a bit skeptical since there's still no real proof. I can't find the article I'm thinking of right now, but if I recall correctly Engström punched in at work 2 minutes before the murder; any idea if that's correct? If so, it does cast a lot of doubt on the theory.
It was the other way around, he punched out 2 minutes before the murder. But yeah, lots of coincidences but no hard proof. The Swedish media has also been skeptical of the investigation’s conclusions, and the secretary of the Lawyer’s Association called it defamatory. Some people are calling for another parliamentary committee to review the investigation, which would be the third such committee since the murder.
Ah, right, then I misremembered that completely. Human memory is fallible, mine just more so :D I wonder if we'll ever get a more definite answer – it could be Engström, but I wouldn't exactly bet on those odds. I sort of doubt it since it's been so long and it's not like you haven't been trying, but who knows? What do you figure?
No worries, the thing about Engström was that his story kept changing over time, but the time he punched out was one of the few things that could be verified. If it was because he was hiding something or because he was a troubled alcoholic who wanted to appear to have a bigger role in the Swedish crime of the century we may never find out. I think the chances of us ever knowing for sure who did it are slim, and if it was a lone killer we will probably never know. If it was a conspiracy there’s always a chance that there’s a paper trail that will one day be discovered, but to me that doesn’t appear to be the case. Palme had a lot of domestic haters both left and right, the Täby moderates allegedly had a dartboard with his face on it in their offices at the time, and in the 1975 book by marxist crime writers Sjöwall/Wahlöö the prime minister is gleefully murdered by a young woman that they describe in heroic terms. No wonder the investigation contains 90 000 names by now.
During the press conference they went through the main angles that the investigation has worked with throughout the years: the 33 year old, Christer Pettersson, Christer A, PKK, South Africa and the police. The first three were based on people being present at or around the crime scene, while the latter three were based on a motive but with no evidence on the crime scene. The investigator mentioned that he found the South Africa angle interesting because it involves a well defined motive unlike the PKK and "the police". Over the years several people have contacted the investigation with "interesting ideas" regarding this angle, but nothing concrete that they could follow up on.