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08 June 2020 One of the most famous cold houses in modern history, the murder of the Swedish premier Olof Palme in 1986, could see new implications and new evidence: on Wednesday, in fact, the developments of the case will be made public in Stockholm.Palme was shot dead in the back on the evening of February 28, 1986 while returning home with his wife Lisbeth after being at the cinema in the center of Stockholm. A man shot at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan and then disappeared in the streets of the capital, giving rise to several theories on the assassination: the two main strands are that related to the lone wolf, who acted for ideological reasons, and that related to the regime of apartheid in South Africa against which Palme had sided openly. There are also theories related to the far right and the industrial world.
South African intelligence, led by Loyiso Jafta, met with Swedish investigators in Pretoria on March 18 and handed over a dossier containing information related to the murder, according to sources familiar with the case, writes the Guardian . It is not yet clear whether the dossier contains completely new information or links that could lead to the conclusion of one of the tracks already active for decades. The meeting was requested by the Swedish side.
"There was a meeting and we handed over a file to the Swedish investigation unit. I don't know what they did to us," a South African news source revealed. Neither Swedish nor South African reports commented on the news to the Guardian.
For years there has been discussion about the role of South African secret services and the possible implications of Palme's support for the African National Congress, but without concrete evidence.
Goran Björkdahl, career diplomat, independently investigated the assassination of Palme and is convinced that the apartheid regime and the associated security apparatus are responsible for the death of the Social Democratic prime minister. In October 2015, Björkdahl also met an intelligence general in Johannesburg, who gave the names of the
South African operatives involved in the murder in exchange for possible immunity. The diplomat delivered all the information to Stockholm.
The well-known writer and investigative journalist Stieg Larsson also investigated the cold case. Before his death in 2004 he had handed over all the information collected to the police. Later, ex-diplomat and writer Jan Stocklassa found four other boxes with other Larsson material with which he continued his research and discovered links with the South African regime but without conclusive evidence, publishing the story in the book "The man who he joked with fire "(Rizzoli).
The main rival theory of that linked to South Africa is that of the lone wolf who acted for ideological reasons. One suspect was Stig Engström, known as "Skandia man", with preparation for the use of weapons and the possibility of accessing a 357 Magnum, a murder weapon, and who committed suicide in 2000. In May 2018, the Swedish magazine Filter has published a 12-year investigation into which it was concluded that it was Engström who killed the premier.