A graphic designer at an insurance company was the man who shot dead then-Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986, a prosecutor announced yesterday, adding that the case, which has haunted Sweden for decades, is now closed.
Palme, who led the Swedish Social Democrats for decades and served two periods as prime minister, was one of the architects of Scandinavia’s model of a strong welfare state, and a fierce Cold War-era critic of both the US and the Soviet Union.
He was shot dead in central Stockholm in 1986 after a visit to the cinema with his wife and son.
Photo: AFP
Prosecutor Krister Petersson, who has led an investigation into the case since 2017, said that the killer was Stig Engstrom, a suspect long known to Swedes as “Skandia man,” after the company where he worked, which has offices near the scene of the shooting.
“Because the person is dead, I cannot bring charges against him and have decided to close the investigation,” Petersson said.
Yesterday’s naming of the killer as a lone gunman with no public political profile is unlikely to put to rest the conspiracy theories that have surrounded the assassination — Swedes have for decades blamed a range of forces, from the CIA and Kurdish separatists to the South African security services.
The prosecutor did not announce any major investigative breakthroughs that had helped solve the crime, saying that the technical evidence was not new.
Engstrom, known to have been present at the scene of the crime, has long been a suspect. He was repeatedly questioned by police, but dismissed relatively quickly from investigation.
Petersson said that several witness accounts of the likely killer were in line with Engstrom’s appearance, while witnesses also contradicted Engstrom’s account of his movements at the scene.
Members of Engstrom’s family have repeatedly dismissed accusations that he was the killer.
Daily Expressen quoted his ex-wife as saying in an interview in February that he was too timid to have carried out the murder.
The paper quoted childhood friend Olle Madebrink as saying that Engstrom was “the most normal person in the world. I can’t believe anything else.”
Members of Engstrom’s family could not be immediately reached for comment.
While a petty criminal was convicted of Palme’s killing decades ago, that judgement was later overturned.
The subsequent failure of police to identify the culprit has left a scar on the psyche of a country that still prides itself on how safe it is to walk its streets.
Palme was prime minister from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Some hail him as the architect of modern Sweden, while conservatives decried his anti-colonialist views and criticism of the US.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS