Olof Palme murder: Sweden identifies man who killed PM in 1986
bbc.com
bbc.com
The mystery isn't "solved". The murderer isn't found. The word "identifies" just means they mention the name of their current prime suspect, but even if he were alive he likely wouldn't be convicted with the evidence that exists. The case is merely "closed".
* The conclusion is essentially based on the information available at the time of the murder, and witness testimony from that time. The early investigation was a huge parade of mistakes, and no conclusive technical evidence could be obtained. The only substantial evidence the police has is two bullets, and they're so damaged that the Swedish forensics experts are not confident they could be matched to a weapon.
* Engström, the suspect, is known to have been near the murder scene at the time, and he has been conclusively shown to have lied about his actions. Among other things, he claimed to have provided first aid to Olof Palme, and to have spoken to his wife, both of which are false. Engström has also changed his story or provided contradicting testimony on other things. The early assessment was that he enjoyed the attention and wanted to inflate his own importance.
* The other witnesses generally describe a fleeing suspect whose description matches Engström's. He himself provided another description. None of the other witnesses remember Engström being at the scene in the minutes after the murder, contrary to his own statements.
* Engström had shooting experience, and was good friends with a weapons collector who had a large amount of firearms, including the type used in the murder.
* Attempts to find a forensic link failed, including in the recent months. The possible murder weapon owned by Engström's friend was inconclusive. DNA swabs from Engström's family could not be matched to anything. The police appear to have no DNA of the murderer from the crime scene.
* While the above points would be enough to arrest Engström and likely to charge him, this would likely not be enough evidence at a trial. Most importantly, there's no hard evidence that Engström had a weapon on him that night.
Interestingly, today even the PM who took over after Palme said that even he had noticed the police incompetence within hours of the murder.
Edit: still watching. They just said that what they have now wouldn't hold water in a court
Edit 2: the procecutor is getting ripped to pieces by the journalists now
People have been sent to the electric chair for less.
He was after all elected with a majority?
Edit: This was diffrent times. Lots of people said things like "i wish he was dead" and worse things. Noone called out such talk like we do now. When I starded as aprentice in a factory about 9 years after this there was always threats of violence among workers, people was called racial slurs to their face, women was always "courted" in crude ways. Noone took such things seriously at the time.
That your class position has moved from the working class to the professional managerial class does not mean the working class has adopted the PMC’s speech codes.
Note that it did not take much to be conservative in Sweden in those days. Cannot be compared with the current US meaning of the word. If you thought that paying less than 50 percent of your salary in taxes was fair, you were basically conservative.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme#Socialdemokraternas...
Worst part is the media stated that they had found technical proof and more and that should be released today and that is why they could decide he was the murderer. But all we got is: That is not possible but the story doesn't match up around Stig.
You couldn't even make it into a movie script because it would be so unbelievable.
A 52 year old man that has no history of crime and who most considers somewhat "feminine" sees Palme and decides to shoot him on a whim. With a revolver he carries in his purse this night. Then he flees the scene but returns ten to fifteen minutes later. None of the other dozen witnesses who are still there and are being questioned by the police recognizes him and he blends in as just another witness. Then instead of keeping a low profile he contacts the police the following days and offer to testify. He also does several interviews in the media over the years. Fourteen years later he dies in an apparent suicide never having told anyone about the murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme#Mu...
It's a Sherlock Holmes case: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
1. He lived in the vicinity of the murder scene
2. He fits the description given by many witnesses extremly well.
3. He owned a revolver of the same type as the murder weapon
4. He claimed to have sold the revolver to some unknown person when asked.
5. He had just been bankrupted, due to a change in tax policy, implemented by Olof Palme's government
6. The police had been called to his home some time before the murder, because someone had heard a gunshot. He claimed then to have accidentally shot at Olof Palme on television.
7. He committed suicide in 2004 when police was knocking on his door.
8. He claimed to have an alibi the evening of the murder, but his alibi did not check out.
There is no smoking gun, but he is definitely just as likely a culprit as the man currently pointed out.
In this case, the set of "other possible suspects" includes literally everybody in the world who loosely fits the description of the killer and can't prove they were elsewhere that day.
They also solved a very high profile double homicide after 16 years. This time the killer was alive and has already confessed.
https://www.thelocal.se/20200609/how-swedish-police-tracked-...
Doesn’t sound like an incident by random Swede who decided to bring his .357 along to an evening stroll in downtown. Just like Oswald said - I’m just a patsy.
The police are trying to say that a middle aged, fat, graphics artist who worked late until 23:19 on a friday evening in february ran into the prime minister on his way to the tube, shot him twice, stuck around the crime scene with the murder weapon and then went back to the office to have coffee with the nightwatchman. They can confirm this from his punch card and the nightwatchman.
He missed his last train home so had to wait it out at the office to take the bus home later.
This reaching really just makes them look incompetent and silly.
Palme really was Sweden's JFK, he stepped on all the wrong toes and didn't take the potential consequences seriously.
The Police response and following investigation was a joke.
Who pulled the trigger matters less.
FWIW, as of this writing, the press conference is still ongoing, started 1 hour and 30 mins ago.
To this day, the German government (one might assume on "request" of the Turkish government) uses that ban to prosecute anything even remotely dealing with Kurdish organizations - even things such as a depiction of Öcalan's face are banned.
It all falls down on this simple fact. What an amazing embarrassment for the Swedish investigators.
Now, if there was more than one person involved (a conspiracy), does anyone really believe the other(s) would let Stig keep on drawing attention to himself? He would be dead in short order.
After almost 35 years it would be next to impossible to find some gunman working alone guilty of it in court, even if he admitted to it. I'm guessing there's very little non-public info he could divulge to prove he was there or any physical evidence he could provide to prove his own guilt.
The best (and perhaps only) bet for physical evidence would probably be bullets with the same led isotope composition, and a plausible gun...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/08/case-of-sweden...
Maybe through that information they determined any South African leads were dead ends.
And we were spending all this money on expensive judges, prosecutors and lawyers, for thousands of years without a reason...
[1] https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&ar...