Palme murder investigation weaves a tangled web
THE MURDER OF Swedish premier Olof Palme on
February 28, 1986, was a trauma for a nation whose people believed themselves safe from the political
SWEDEN weeks after the murder, a Kurdish bookshop/café in Stockholm was raided, and ten people were arrested simply for being on the premises.
When the prosecutors later started to violence afflicting other countries. The mystery that continues to shroud the assassination and the scandals that have developed around the investigation have added to a series of scandals in recent years that have been shaking the credibility of the state administration.
This has a particular political importance in Sweden, a country that never experienced a democratic revolution.
The policy of the state was liberalized under the pressure of the mass movement and international events, but fundamentally the administration has retained considerable arbitrary power.
All these contradictions are now coming to a head with the start, on May 30, of the trial of a suspect that most
Swedes find it hard to believe could be guilty.
MICHAEL JENSEN
W
HEN OLOF PALME was murdered in 1986, the police response was the greatest non-investigation in the country's history. It started with the failure to block roads inside and outside the city, to put a guard on the airports, docks and railroad stations and to issue a national alarm immediately, despite the fact that the identity of the victim became known minutes after the murder. In fact, in general nothing was done on the national level in the first hours after the murder.
It is possible that police were not authorized to take such drastic measures, but this gave an unfortunate impression of indifference. Many people certainly expected that vigorous measures would be taken, if for nothing else than to demonstrate the nation's anger and the effectiveness of the police force. But the police took no immediate steps other than those that would be carried out for an "ordinary" murder.
Others, outside the police forces, did take drastic measures. That is evident from the fact that the top military command met on the night of the murder to assess whether there was a military threat.
After this unimpressive beginning, it seems odd that it was a bureaucrat, the county police chief in Stockholm, Hans
Holmér, a jurist without police training, who took operational charge of the murder investigation. His activity has been described in a white paper prepared by journalists at the weekly Proletären entitled "The murder of Olof Palme and the police trail."
Holmér disregarded the national police chief, the national police command, the assassination commission and all the professional police authorities on murder cases. He assigned the best qualified murder investigators that could be brought into the case to sorting out tip offs that he later assessed personally.
### Repression against
Kurdish community
Hans Holmer has good connections at the top, and he got a representative of the govemment in his investigation group, a person who was subsequently described as a passive observer but who helped to give the impression that Holmer had the government's consent for everything he did. It was important for the government to maintain that the contact man was an observer, since direct control would conflict with Swedish basic law.
However, all this was discussed only a long time afterward. In the first period, everyone believed that the murderer would quickly be caught. And Hans Holmer, who had already started out on what would be the main trail for him, lost no time. Two question the legality of of Hans Holmer's methods, his close contacts with the government were a factor that delayed his removal as the head of the investigation. Instead, one after the other, the prosecutors went off the case, because Holmér was clearly disregarding democratic rights and liberties. In several instances, a legal authority, the Swedish justice ombudsman, has established that Holmer broke the law. He is now being prosecuted for certain such violations, and further prosecutions are possible. Evidence pointing to police involvement
While the campaign against the Kurds was going on, on March 13, 1986, a man with right-wing sympathies and a certain connection to the reactionary European Workers Party was a arrested. The evidence was so weak that the prosecutor released him on March 19. Then, harassment of the Kurds in Sweden got underway in earnest. If this witch-hunt had led to the expulsion of some Kurds, the chief of the investigation could have said "We know who murdered Olof Palme. There was not enough evidence to convict him, but it was more than enough to deport him." Then later, Holmér might have been able to say, "he died in a Turkish prison." Instead, the witch-hunt against the Kurds led to Holmér's downfall. The attack was too crude, and no evidence was ever offered
There is a long series of circumstances that point to the involvement of policemen. One of them is the absolutely unbelievable disregard of witnesses who offered unwelcome testimonies (that is, those who did not point out Kurds). The following are the salient points in the "police trail."
There are accounts by at least 20 witnesses about a man present at the time and place of the murder. All of these accounts cited a tall, often blond, man and, in at least eight accounts, he was supposed to have had a walkie-talkie (or other radio communications equipment). These are witnesses that were found by journalists without help from the police. The real number could be much larger. There is no such testimony about Kurds or even people of a foreign appearance. media, followed the murderer and encoun-
SWEDEN tered a police car that slowly passed him, and somewhat later turned back. "Lars" asked the commanding officer in the car, "are you chasing the one who fired in Sveaväg?" "Yes, " the police answered. But this conversation took place five minutes before the alarm went out, if we are to believe the commissioner who arrived first at the scene of the murder and left a minute after the alarm was given, at 11:30pm. The alarm is supposed to have been sent out at 11:29pm, but policemen had turned up already at 11:23 and said that they were after the murderer, and no-one in the leadership of the investigation thought it worthwhile to look into this any further.
Other witnesses say that they can identify a certain policeman who was at the site of the murder but who claims to have been at home. One witness reported about a tall blond man, but got the answer "No tall blond men are in question" from a policeman. Another witness says that he saw a certain policeman get in a bus five minutes after the murder. He had difficulty making his deposition and was finally threatened by a policeman... "If you go on like this, you are going to be prosecuted." The bus driver gave a similar testimony, and was subjected to aggressive treatment by the police. Another witnesses had to wait for up to a year before they could give testimony that seems quite central. Some were not heard at all.
The investigation has not systematically studied the police trail. Moreover, since the leadership of the investigation was never ready to consider such a hypothesis, the data is lacking for such a study. The police car mentioned above that appeared on the fleeing murderer's path does not appear in the police force's own reconstruction of the events. Links between police and extreme right
A large number of the policemen on duty on the night of the murder belonged to the notorious group in the Stockholm police, the so-called Baseball League, who appear in civilian clothes, often sports outfits, from which they got their name. The group was set up to deal with street violence, but with hundreds of complaints about its involvement in violence it quickly came to be seen itself as a threat in the street scene, even by the police. Although the group was formally dissolved, it seems to have persisted as a tightly knit social group.
A part of this group have outspoken fascist sympathies, and even before the murder the Stockholm police were obliged to investigate the existence of right-extremist groups in the force. Among other things, a South African police magazine published a statement by a visiting Swedish policeman who expressed his approval of the South African police riot gear intended for use 20 against the Black majority.
Hans Holmér left the leadership of the International Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989 investigation on March 5, 1987, after a flood of criticism from the prosecutors for his illegal actions, especially against the Kurds in Sweden. In a certain sense, it can be said that the legal system functioned, but that goes only for the part that the prosecutors are directly responsible for. It does not apply, for example, to the assessment of tip offs, which really determines who comes under suspicion.
The new leadership of the investigation, made up of three prosecutors, in fact adopted the old starting point, which excludes the police from suspicion. The commission's spokesperson, Jörgen Almblad, has moreover made statements several times in the media that seemed to clear the police of suspicion, but which have later proved to
At the end of 1988, a 41-year-old man was arrested for the murder. His trial is to begin at the end of May, and is expected to last for a month. He is an alcoholic and a drug addict, and has been portrayed by the investigating commission as a crazy loner, the perfect solution for the Palme assassi-
Mass media kept silent about "police trail"
But it is hard to believe that the perpetrator of this murder was a man previously and convicted for 63 crimes, including an unsuccessful attempt to steal a pack of sausages worth 11 kronar [a little more than $2, a pathetic sum in view of high Swedish prices]. His latest brush with the law was over urinating against a shop window in central Stockholm.
All the serious crimes he has committed have been related to outbursts of rage, and he has been arrested in connection with every case. He is hardly the sort of man to manipulate shells so that the shooting would make less noise, as is believed to have been done in the case of the Palme murder, and to have eluded the police for
The evidence has remained weak, and the mass media give the impression that people are being prepared for an acquittal. A well-known lawyer made statements several times in the media that there is not sufficient evidence for a conviction, that the suspect should never have been prosecuted, and so on. And the evening paper Aftonbladet did a poll showing that less than 20% of the population believe that he is guilty.
With the exception of some articles in the social-democratic magazine Arbetet, which is published in Malmö [a port city just across the strait from Copenhagen] and not read in Stockholm, the mass media have kept silent about the police trail. The contributions that have come forward have focused on details, often odd ones, making it totally impossible for the general public to comprehend what is involved.
The biggest daily, the liberal Dagens Nyheter, has offered mainly disinformation. From the outset, it had regular meetings with Holmér. After the anti-climax represented by Holmér's departure, the paper has continued to back the new leadership of the investigation, and in the recent trial against Proletären [for libeling police officers] it came to light that the information in an interview in Dagens Nyheter that seemed to exonerate the police was probably fabricated by the staff.
One scandal leads to another
In every case, it was denied by the spokesperson for the new leadership of the investigation when he was called on testify under oath about his interview. Another alternative is that the new spokesperson, Jörgen Almblad, was a bit careless with the truth. He has been caught out on previous
It is often crime reporters who have covered the murder of Olof Palme, and their jobs depend on cooperation from the police. When, in addition, the official leadership of the investigation refused to discuss the slightest suggestion that police might be involved, they did not have any nerve to raise the question.
In the spring of 1988, the police arrested a policeman at a Swedish customs post with a banned listening device. He turned out to be a private bodyguard for publishing company director Ebbe Carisson, former press secretary of a previous social democrat minister of justice. The mystery of a private individual who got a bodyguard from the police and proved to have a letter of recommendation from the minister of justice led finally to the resignation of the minister, along with others. Ebbe Carlsson's trail proved to be a variation of the Kurdish hypothesis, this time even more clearly backed by government representatives.
So, one scandal opened up another, but while they have been peeling away like an onion, we are not getting closer to the truth. Rather, the path to the murderer is being one scandal after another, which all have to be investigated both by the prosecutors and the parliament's consti-
Now, all sections of the bourgeoisie and the top echelons of the social democracy are clearly hoping that the murderer will not be found, or at least not turn out to be a policeman. The police and judiciary have so committed themselves to defending their own people that a non-partisan investigation would find the entire legal system a solid brick wall.
There is no freedom of speech when it comes to the murder of Olof Palme. A witness reported seeing a policeman just before the murder. Neither the police nor the mass media reacted. Then, the witness wrote a book, naming the policeman, and three left-wing papers published the information - the Workers' Communist Party paper Norrskensflamman; the Communist
Olof Palme (DR) League-Marxist Leninist paper Proletären; and Internationalen, the paper of the Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International. The witness was sued by the two policeman, along with Norrskensflamman. Then, the chancellor for justice initiated a case against the other two papers for aggravated libel, taking over individual suits against them by the policemen.
The case against Proletären has just concluded, and the others will soon be heard. In the Proletären case, where the defendants were allowed to call witnesses under oath, several points were revealed that cast even more suspicion on the police. In connection with these prosecutions, a campaign for press freedom is being conducted in Sweden, along with collections for the
Olof Palme's murder has given rise to conflicts on a scale never seen before in Sweden. A significant minority of independent journalists and others are convinced that the judicial system is covering up for the murderer, while the mass media are keeping a tight lid on it all. And the state prosecutors have the support of less than 20% of the population in believing that the person who is to be tried for the murder is
In the coming weeks, the trials will be held against the left papers Internationalen and Norrskensflamman, as well as against the suspect. The authorities will do everything to cover up the facts concerning the police trail, and if the judgments are handed down in July at a time when the workers are on vacation, that may make it more difficult to mobilize people in defence of the right of free speech.
At the same time, pressure is growing for consideration of the police trail. In the summer, a report is expected from an independent committee headed by journalist Herbert Söderström, who has investigated a long series of circumstances and observations since the time of the murder. *