Maybe they can use their resources to something useful now instead of a 30 yr old murder which may even been exceeding the prosecution time limit, depending on the motive. Also everyone has known for the past 20 yrs that nobody is gonna get convicted for it.
I think murders of prime ministers (or presidents) should be investigated as thoroughly as possible. Even if it turns out the perpetrator killed himself 20 years ago.
I wonder if they didn't in passing mention (in the press conference) the reason why the case is concluding now: In 2016, most of the old team went into retirement and they recruited some new members.
FWIW, as of this writing, the press conference is still ongoing, started 1 hour and 30 mins ago.
Watching the extended press conference now. No technical evidence points to the identified man but as I understand very little technical evidence exists. Lots of weird circumstances around this guy but overall this seems pretty weak. The guy has promoted himself as a key whitness since the morning after the murder, cunning strategy if he really did it. But he comes across as a bit of a dunce in the interviews.
Edit: still watching. They just said that what they have now wouldn't hold water in a court
Edit 2: the procecutor is getting ripped to pieces by the journalists now
It does not seem morally right to "convict" (in the media) this man posthumously, based on no technical evidence. They are trying to put forward a story as canon, and while that is good for the many (the police, and for Sweden in general), the integrity of the judicial process and this man's right to due process is sacrificed.
He has relatives. And smearing a dead man is never right. The useless police should just smear themselves instead. absolutely useless. And to think the the last investigators had the audacity to smear the predecessors when they are just as useless themselves...
I think the evidence is that he was at the scene and lied to his teeth when questioned. He had weapon trainig, he was a right winger who hated Palme, he eventually took his own life.
People have been sent to the electric chair for less.
Not a right-winger in the sense that the word is used now, he was in local politics for the Moderates mostly dealing with school issues. As for hating Palme, the same could be said of about a million people in Sweden at the time.
He was pretty popular and pretty unpopular too. That's the story about him, he was a controversial, born "aristocrat" but still social democrat, and he had many who loved him and many haters. He was controversial and outspoken.
Oh he was extremly popular. My parents was in tears when they heard about the murder (from me, I was 8 but I had the radio on in my room). But he was also seen as a traitor by the right. Being outspokenly angry at him was not unusual or extreme at the time.
Edit: This was diffrent times. Lots of people said things like "i wish he was dead" and worse things. Noone called out such talk like we do now. When I starded as aprentice in a factory about 9 years after this there was always threats of violence among workers, people was called racial slurs to their face, women was always "courted" in crude ways. Noone took such things seriously at the time.
> Edit: This was diffrent times. Lots of people said things like "i wish he was dead" and worse things. Noone called out such talk like we do now. When I starded as aprentice in a factory about 9 years after this there was always threats of violence among workers, people was called racial slurs to their face, women was always "courted" in crude ways. Noone took such things seriously at the time.
That your class position has moved from the working class to the professional managerial class does not mean the working class has adopted the PMC’s speech codes.
I'm not so sure that it's primarily a class thing, I think its more generational. I was still in factories when the shift happened around -98. A bunch of mean old assholes retired and the gen-X people started to get influential in management and more assertive as workers. Very expensive project management roles started to be occupied by women and the company maybe thought they couldn't afford to lose them over some sexist bullshit. Asshole behaviour simply wasn't tolerated anymore, on any level. I have no illusion that people stopped being assholes in -98 but that kind of behaviour was kept to smaller social circles (or anonymus) for a while.
I was curious what Palme did, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme tells me he pursued a non-aligned politics, but also he notably supported Cuban revolutionaries and attacked right wing authoritarian leaders (Franco, Salazar, Pinochet).
He created a policy slowly transferring company shares from private owners to workers unions with the intention of moving towards a fully worker driven economy. That was a disaster causing many big companies to leave Sweden and was reversed soon after and nobody has tried something similar since. So you could call him a communist idealist and a lot of people really hated him for it. If you think that being against this makes you "far right", then you are probably pretty far left.
Do you get downvoted at HN just for mentioning "communism"? Doing this is why he was so loved and also so hated. Or could it be that the same things he did is being proposed in UK and USA right now, so people don't want to hear how it failed and was hated by many in Sweden over thirty years ago?
I dont think ive heard anything similar being sugested in the US or UK. And it should be noted that the employment funds was hardly Palmes issue but something driven through by the unions that have large power with in the Social Democratic party in sweden. It was largely impopular even within the social democratic leadership.
> I dont think ive heard anything similar being sugested in the US or UK.
Both Bernie and Corbyn wants to do something very similar.
> And it should be noted that the employment funds was hardly Palmes issue but something driven through by the unions that have large power with in the Social Democratic party in sweden
But Olof Palme was the one who let it through, normally the Social Democrats doesn't agree with everything the unions wants. He might not have been that radical himself, but he was radical enough to not think it was a bad proposal.
Ok, that might be so, i guess i dont follow US politics as close as i thought.
As for Palme its true that he has a responsibility as a leader even if he wasnt the driving force for the issue from the start. He didnt exactly argue against it publicly.
But i think the hate against Palme was more complex than a single issue and has much more to do with him being a loud and wellspoken voice for the left during the cold war / culture wars of the late 60s - early 70s. Added to that his upperclass background that seemed to annoy the right wing.
Olof Palme was ill liked among many, also people far from far right. It was also among the ordinary right, common people with conservative or libertarian opinions. Among traits Palme had that caused this was arrogance and divisiveness.
Note that it did not take much to be conservative in Sweden in those days. Cannot be compared with the current US meaning of the word. If you thought that paying less than 50 percent of your salary in taxes was fair, you were basically conservative.
Color me unconvinced. Two shots, Palme was dead before hitting the ground. Murderer escaped through outdoor stairway and he/she or the gun was never seen again.
Doesn’t sound like an incident by random Swede who decided to bring his .357 along to an evening stroll in downtown. Just like Oswald said - I’m just a patsy.
Exactly. Also happened near an intersection with plenty of obscured getaways.
The police are trying to say that a middle aged, fat, graphics artist who worked late until 23:19 on a friday evening in february ran into the prime minister on his way to the tube, shot him twice, stuck around the crime scene with the murder weapon and then went back to the office to have coffee with the nightwatchman. They can confirm this from his punch card and the nightwatchman.
He missed his last train home so had to wait it out at the office to take the bus home later.
This reaching really just makes them look incompetent and silly.
Even though I have suspected Stig Engström for a while, and so many statements that he been saying are incorrect compared to other witnesses. However, I would argue this is still not enough to guarantee he is the murderer, but only becoming the new prime suspect. But they can't get any further and they state they should have suspected him earlier so they could press him when was alive.
Worst part is the media stated that they had found technical proof and more and that should be released today and that is why they could decide he was the murderer. But all we got is: That is not possible but the story doesn't match up around Stig.
The Swedish police seems to know jack shit about how unreliable witnesses actually are. You can't draw conclusions from others not noticing Stig, or Stig believing he did things that he probably never did. The human brain's memory system is amazingly unreliable when it's been under duress.
Headline is bad, it's rather "Case is closed because best suspect dead so can't be followed up properly and there are no other suspects".
The mystery isn't "solved". The murderer isn't found. The word "identifies" just means they mention the name of their current prime suspect, but even if he were alive he likely wouldn't be convicted with the evidence that exists. The case is merely "closed".
The Palme murder was the largest unsolved crime mystery of my life time and it ends like this? Definitely a very disappointing conclusion to the investigation.
You couldn't even make it into a movie script because it would be so unbelievable.
A 52 year old man that has no history of crime and who most considers somewhat "feminine" sees Palme and decides to shoot him on a whim. With a revolver he carries in his purse this night. Then he flees the scene but returns ten to fifteen minutes later. None of the other dozen witnesses who are still there and are being questioned by the police recognizes him and he blends in as just another witness. Then instead of keeping a low profile he contacts the police the following days and offer to testify. He also does several interviews in the media over the years. Fourteen years later he dies in an apparent suicide never having told anyone about the murder.
Christer Andersson, the man identified as GH in the wikipedia article is imho just as likely, if not more so, compared to the Skandiaman.
1. He lived in the vicinity of the murder scene
2. He fits the description given by many witnesses extremly well.
3. He owned a revolver of the same type as the murder weapon
4. He claimed to have sold the revolver to some unknown person when asked.
5. He had just been bankrupted, due to a change in tax policy, implemented by Olof Palme's government
6. The police had been called to his home some time before the murder, because someone had heard a gunshot. He claimed then to have accidentally shot at Olof Palme on television.
7. He committed suicide in 2004 when police was knocking on his door.
8. He claimed to have an alibi the evening of the murder, but his alibi did not check out.
There is no smoking gun, but he is definitely just as likely a culprit as the man currently pointed out.
It's not a Sherlock Holmes case at all. That principal only applies to locked-room style mysteries, with a provably tiny pool of possible suspects that can be eliminated one by one. I.e., fictional situations.
In this case, the set of "other possible suspects" includes literally everybody in the world who loosely fits the description of the killer and can't prove they were elsewhere that day.
The police hasn't investigated "all other possibilities". Far from it. It only takes ONE person who is unknown to render the Sherlock Holmes logic to fall apart. It's unfortunately more suited to fiction, than to actual real life.
Yes, but there are other witnesses that claims to have seen him at the scene. It is also known that he left his office 50 meters from the murder scene 23:19 or 23:20 (exact time is hotly disputed) and returned to it at 23:40. According to the night watchman he was visibly shaken and they spoke about the murder that he had just witnessed. Not exactly how you expect someone who just has murdered a prime minister to act.
I was personally hoping for more direct evidence. Considering the amount of time that have passed since the murder, my thought was always that the most likely evidence to ever surface was some intelligence records from old South African or Soviet archives.
After almost 35 years it would be next to impossible to find some gunman working alone guilty of it in court, even if he admitted to it. I'm guessing there's very little non-public info he could divulge to prove he was there or any physical evidence he could provide to prove his own guilt.
The best (and perhaps only) bet for physical evidence would probably be bullets with the same led isotope composition, and a plausible gun...
To summarize what was said during the press conference, and the prosecutorial logic:
* The conclusion is essentially based on the information available at the time of the murder, and witness testimony from that time. The early investigation was a huge parade of mistakes, and no conclusive technical evidence could be obtained. The only substantial evidence the police has is two bullets, and they're so damaged that the Swedish forensics experts are not confident they could be matched to a weapon.
* Engström, the suspect, is known to have been near the murder scene at the time, and he has been conclusively shown to have lied about his actions. Among other things, he claimed to have provided first aid to Olof Palme, and to have spoken to his wife, both of which are false. Engström has also changed his story or provided contradicting testimony on other things. The early assessment was that he enjoyed the attention and wanted to inflate his own importance.
* The other witnesses generally describe a fleeing suspect whose description matches Engström's. He himself provided another description. None of the other witnesses remember Engström being at the scene in the minutes after the murder, contrary to his own statements.
* Engström had shooting experience, and was good friends with a weapons collector who had a large amount of firearms, including the type used in the murder.
* Attempts to find a forensic link failed, including in the recent months. The possible murder weapon owned by Engström's friend was inconclusive. DNA swabs from Engström's family could not be matched to anything. The police appear to have no DNA of the murderer from the crime scene.
* While the above points would be enough to arrest Engström and likely to charge him, this would likely not be enough evidence at a trial. Most importantly, there's no hard evidence that Engström had a weapon on him that night.
Interestingly, today even the PM who took over after Palme said that even he had noticed the police incompetence within hours of the murder.
Interesting side fact: The Palme murder was long blamed on the Kurdish organization PKK which got banned as a "terrorist" organization in Europe around 1993/94 as a result.
To this day, the German government (one might assume on "request" of the Turkish government) uses that ban to prosecute anything even remotely dealing with Kurdish organizations - even things such as a depiction of Öcalan's face are banned.
I assume this the same Kurdish group that has been fighting Turkey for decades, and in Iraq, the one the us allied with to fight Isis? Turkey of course accuses them of all bad things. Maybe it was Turkey. The US never really satisfactorily has gotten past our own JFK murder even though they caught the person.
Yep, exactly this Kurdish group - although to be precise, the ISIS fighters were the YPG/YPJ; these are loosely associated with the PKK which is still enough for the German government to say PKK = YPG. Utterly ridiculous.
Farsical.
Just because the investigators don't have the actual perpetrator(s) on the radar it doesn't follow that the only one they haven't managed to look more closely at is the perpetrator.
They still need some actual evidence. Being angry because Stig is more intelligent than the police, and told them so, is not evidence.
First of all: If Stig did it, there would have to have been more than one person involved in the murder. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that Stig could know Palme was passing by otherwise. And there's no way he could have killed Palme on the spur of the moment. (Too many reason to go into here.)
It all falls down on this simple fact. What an amazing embarrassment for the Swedish investigators.
Now, if there was more than one person involved (a conspiracy), does anyone really believe the other(s) would let Stig keep on drawing attention to himself? He would be dead in short order.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] thread[1] https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&ar...
They also solved a very high profile double homicide after 16 years. This time the killer was alive and has already confessed.
https://www.thelocal.se/20200609/how-swedish-police-tracked-...
FWIW, as of this writing, the press conference is still ongoing, started 1 hour and 30 mins ago.
Edit: still watching. They just said that what they have now wouldn't hold water in a court
Edit 2: the procecutor is getting ripped to pieces by the journalists now
People have been sent to the electric chair for less.
He was after all elected with a majority?
Edit: This was diffrent times. Lots of people said things like "i wish he was dead" and worse things. Noone called out such talk like we do now. When I starded as aprentice in a factory about 9 years after this there was always threats of violence among workers, people was called racial slurs to their face, women was always "courted" in crude ways. Noone took such things seriously at the time.
That your class position has moved from the working class to the professional managerial class does not mean the working class has adopted the PMC’s speech codes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_funds
Both Bernie and Corbyn wants to do something very similar.
> And it should be noted that the employment funds was hardly Palmes issue but something driven through by the unions that have large power with in the Social Democratic party in sweden
But Olof Palme was the one who let it through, normally the Social Democrats doesn't agree with everything the unions wants. He might not have been that radical himself, but he was radical enough to not think it was a bad proposal.
As for Palme its true that he has a responsibility as a leader even if he wasnt the driving force for the issue from the start. He didnt exactly argue against it publicly.
But i think the hate against Palme was more complex than a single issue and has much more to do with him being a loud and wellspoken voice for the left during the cold war / culture wars of the late 60s - early 70s. Added to that his upperclass background that seemed to annoy the right wing.
Note that it did not take much to be conservative in Sweden in those days. Cannot be compared with the current US meaning of the word. If you thought that paying less than 50 percent of your salary in taxes was fair, you were basically conservative.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme#Socialdemokraternas...
Doesn’t sound like an incident by random Swede who decided to bring his .357 along to an evening stroll in downtown. Just like Oswald said - I’m just a patsy.
The police are trying to say that a middle aged, fat, graphics artist who worked late until 23:19 on a friday evening in february ran into the prime minister on his way to the tube, shot him twice, stuck around the crime scene with the murder weapon and then went back to the office to have coffee with the nightwatchman. They can confirm this from his punch card and the nightwatchman.
He missed his last train home so had to wait it out at the office to take the bus home later.
This reaching really just makes them look incompetent and silly.
Palme really was Sweden's JFK, he stepped on all the wrong toes and didn't take the potential consequences seriously.
The Police response and following investigation was a joke.
Who pulled the trigger matters less.
Worst part is the media stated that they had found technical proof and more and that should be released today and that is why they could decide he was the murderer. But all we got is: That is not possible but the story doesn't match up around Stig.
The mystery isn't "solved". The murderer isn't found. The word "identifies" just means they mention the name of their current prime suspect, but even if he were alive he likely wouldn't be convicted with the evidence that exists. The case is merely "closed".
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/08/case-of-sweden...
Maybe through that information they determined any South African leads were dead ends.
You couldn't even make it into a movie script because it would be so unbelievable.
A 52 year old man that has no history of crime and who most considers somewhat "feminine" sees Palme and decides to shoot him on a whim. With a revolver he carries in his purse this night. Then he flees the scene but returns ten to fifteen minutes later. None of the other dozen witnesses who are still there and are being questioned by the police recognizes him and he blends in as just another witness. Then instead of keeping a low profile he contacts the police the following days and offer to testify. He also does several interviews in the media over the years. Fourteen years later he dies in an apparent suicide never having told anyone about the murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Olof_Palme#Mu...
It's a Sherlock Holmes case: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
1. He lived in the vicinity of the murder scene
2. He fits the description given by many witnesses extremly well.
3. He owned a revolver of the same type as the murder weapon
4. He claimed to have sold the revolver to some unknown person when asked.
5. He had just been bankrupted, due to a change in tax policy, implemented by Olof Palme's government
6. The police had been called to his home some time before the murder, because someone had heard a gunshot. He claimed then to have accidentally shot at Olof Palme on television.
7. He committed suicide in 2004 when police was knocking on his door.
8. He claimed to have an alibi the evening of the murder, but his alibi did not check out.
There is no smoking gun, but he is definitely just as likely a culprit as the man currently pointed out.
In this case, the set of "other possible suspects" includes literally everybody in the world who loosely fits the description of the killer and can't prove they were elsewhere that day.
After almost 35 years it would be next to impossible to find some gunman working alone guilty of it in court, even if he admitted to it. I'm guessing there's very little non-public info he could divulge to prove he was there or any physical evidence he could provide to prove his own guilt.
The best (and perhaps only) bet for physical evidence would probably be bullets with the same led isotope composition, and a plausible gun...
* The conclusion is essentially based on the information available at the time of the murder, and witness testimony from that time. The early investigation was a huge parade of mistakes, and no conclusive technical evidence could be obtained. The only substantial evidence the police has is two bullets, and they're so damaged that the Swedish forensics experts are not confident they could be matched to a weapon.
* Engström, the suspect, is known to have been near the murder scene at the time, and he has been conclusively shown to have lied about his actions. Among other things, he claimed to have provided first aid to Olof Palme, and to have spoken to his wife, both of which are false. Engström has also changed his story or provided contradicting testimony on other things. The early assessment was that he enjoyed the attention and wanted to inflate his own importance.
* The other witnesses generally describe a fleeing suspect whose description matches Engström's. He himself provided another description. None of the other witnesses remember Engström being at the scene in the minutes after the murder, contrary to his own statements.
* Engström had shooting experience, and was good friends with a weapons collector who had a large amount of firearms, including the type used in the murder.
* Attempts to find a forensic link failed, including in the recent months. The possible murder weapon owned by Engström's friend was inconclusive. DNA swabs from Engström's family could not be matched to anything. The police appear to have no DNA of the murderer from the crime scene.
* While the above points would be enough to arrest Engström and likely to charge him, this would likely not be enough evidence at a trial. Most importantly, there's no hard evidence that Engström had a weapon on him that night.
Interestingly, today even the PM who took over after Palme said that even he had noticed the police incompetence within hours of the murder.
To this day, the German government (one might assume on "request" of the Turkish government) uses that ban to prosecute anything even remotely dealing with Kurdish organizations - even things such as a depiction of Öcalan's face are banned.
And we were spending all this money on expensive judges, prosecutors and lawyers, for thousands of years without a reason...
It all falls down on this simple fact. What an amazing embarrassment for the Swedish investigators.
Now, if there was more than one person involved (a conspiracy), does anyone really believe the other(s) would let Stig keep on drawing attention to himself? He would be dead in short order.