The shot rang out in a busy avenue in Stockholm in February 1986, fired at point-blank vary. Less than an hour later, the prime minister of Sweden was pronounced lifeless.
But 37 years and a number of investigations later, together with a decade-long probe by famed crime author Stieg Larsson, no person has ever been delivered to justice for Olof Palme’s homicide.
Now a brand new four-part sequence from Sky Documentaries explores the unsolved assassination generally referred to as “Europe’s JFK shooting”, and the world of spies and intrigue that swirls round it.
Jan Stocklassa is a former diplomat for the Swedish international ministry who has spent the final 10 years investigating Palme’s homicide.
He was doing analysis for a e-book when he got here throughout a trove of supplies compiled by Larsson, the writer of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, who had quietly spent years looking for the killer earlier than he died in 2004.
“The murder of Olof Palme has been on and off in people’s minds for 37 years,” Mr Stocklassa tells Sky News.
“It’s always there, and it’s sort of a wound that starts to heal and then gets torn up again.”
Delicate timing
The assassination got here at a time when, as chief of Sweden, Palme was strolling a harmful tightrope between the 2 superpowers: the US and the Soviet Union.
The USSR was eyeing growth – one thing America and the West had been determined to maintain Sweden away from because of its geographical and strategic significance.
Controversially, Palme sought to maintain Sweden as a impartial, non-aligned nation and, crucially, one which was not in NATO.
So it was at a fragile time for Sweden that Palme was assassinated, presumably altering the course of his nation’s historical past.
Olof Palme was killed as he and his spouse walked house from the cinema
“The political situation changed a lot and I don’t think we realised it then”, Mr Stocklassa stated. “Sweden was trying to create this third possibility between the Soviet Union and the US and help all small nations to be able to run their own destiny.
“And that one bullet at the back of Olof Palme has modified that instantly.”
Now, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden has abandoned its decade’s long position of neutrality and is set on becoming a member of NATO.
Read extra:
‘Historic second’ as Sweden applies to hitch NATO
NATO allies ‘agree Ukraine will develop into member’
Mr Stocklassa’s investigations into Palme’s homicide noticed him enter a world of shadowy intrigue and even come nose to nose with former spies. What was that like?
“Scary,” he says. “I went to Cyprus to meet this Swedish spy living in northern Cyprus because he wanted to avoid extradition.”
Mr Stocklassa says he used a pretend title to satisfy the spy and did not know who to belief, even the police.
But he stated getting into the world of spooks was a “rush” that you would be able to get “drawn into or addicted to”.
Jan Stocklassa has been investigating the assassination for greater than a decade
After a decade of analysis, Mr Stocklassa says the assassination nonetheless stays unsolved – however he says he has constructed on Larsson’s work and has a idea.
“I’m not saying who I believe was actually pulling the trigger, I have a theory on that,” he says.
“But more importantly, you can see the actual forces behind it, with the South Africans using a Swedish middleman and using Swedish right-wingers as helpers and possible scapegoats or patsies.
“That’s the speculation that Stieg (Larsson) believed in, and I strongly consider in. I’m even satisfied about it.”
The Man Who Played With Fire returns for episode two on Sunday, 21 May on Sky Documentaries and Now. Episode one is offered to observe on catch up.
Content Source: information.sky.com