Assassination of Olof Palme
Updated: Wikipedia source
On 28 February 1986, at 23:21 CET (22:21 UTC), Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was fatally wounded by a single gunshot while walking home from a cinema with his wife Lisbeth Palme on the central Stockholm street Sveavägen. Lisbeth Palme was slightly wounded by a second shot. The couple did not have bodyguards with them. Christer Pettersson, who had previously been convicted of manslaughter in an unrelated case, was convicted of the Palme murder in 1988 after Mrs. Palme identified him as the assailant. However, on appeal to Svea Court of Appeal, he was acquitted. A petition for a new trial, filed by the prosecutor, was denied by the Supreme Court of Sweden. Pettersson died on 29 September 2004, legally innocent of the Palme assassination. On 10 June 2020, chief prosecutor Krister Petersson, in charge of the investigation, announced his conclusion that Stig Engström, also known as the "Skandia Man", was the most likely suspect. No direct evidence was presented but the prosecutor mentioned Engström's past knowledge of weapons, friendship with anti-Palme circles and similar clothes as described by certain witnesses. However, as Engström had died on 26 June 2000, and no further investigative or judicial measures were possible, the investigation was officially closed. The decision to name Engström as a suspect was widely criticised. Other theories about the murder have also been proposed. In 2018, the former businessman Jan Stocklassa conducted an investigation, which itself was based on the writer Stieg Larsson's own investigation. In 2023, this investigation was presented in the HBO Max documentary The Man Who Played With Fire.