Blood on the Snow

Jan Bondeson

Description

The Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a major figure in world politics and an ardent opponent of apartheid, was shot dead on the streets of Stockholm in February 1986. At the time of his death, Palme was deeply involved in Middle East diplomacy and was working under UN auspices to end the Iran-Iraq war. Across Scandinavia, Palme's killing had an impact similar to that of the Kennedy assassinations in the United States-and it ignited nearly as many conspiracy theories. Interest in the Palme slaying was most recently stirred by reports of the death of Christer Pettersson, who was tried for the murder twice, convicted the first time, and then acquitted on appeal.In his investigative account of Palme's still-unsolved murder, the historian Jan Bondeson meticulously recreates the assassination and its aftermath. Like the best works of crime fiction, this book puts the victim and his death into social context. Bondeson's work, however, is noteworthy for its dispassionate treatment of police incompetence: the police did not answer a witness's phone call reporting the murder just 45 seconds after it occurred, and further time was lost as the police sought to confirm that someone had actually been shot. When the police arrived on the scene, they did not even recognize the victim as the Prime Minister. This early confusion was emblematic of the errors that were to follow.Bondeson demolishes the various conspiracy theories that have been devised to make sense of the killing, before suggesting a convincing explanation of his own. A brilliant piece of investigative journalism, Blood on the Snow includes crime-scene photographs and reconstructions that have never before been published and offers a gripping narrative of a crime that shocked a continent.

Sujets

• True crime
• Terrorism
• History of Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 14 avril 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801470127
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 19 Mo

Extrait

BLOOD ON THE SNOW

Also by Jan Bondeson

The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries (2004) Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear(2001) The London Monster: A Sanguinary Tale(2000) The Twoheaded Boy and Other Medical Marvels(2000) The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History (1999) A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities(1997)

BLOOD ON THE SNOW

THE KILLING OF OLOF PALME

JAN BONDESON

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2005 by Cornell University

Title page illustration: Murder scene on March 1, 1986. Reproduced by permission of the Swedish National Police Board.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2005 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Design by Scott Levine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bondeson, Jan. Blood on the snow : the killing of Olof Palme / Jan Bondeson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8014-4211-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Palme, Olof, 1927—Assassination. 2. Prime ministers—Sweden— Death. 3. Assassination—Investigation—Sweden. I. Title. DL876.P3B66 2005 364.152'4'0948509048—dc22 2004028249

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Preface: The Eighty-nine Steps 1. Death in Stockholm 2. Blood on the Snow 3. A Killer on the Loose 4. Hans Holmér Takes Charge 5. The First Main Suspect: The Oddball Schoolmaster 6. Red Herrings 7. The Kurdish Conspiracy 8. Ebbe Carlsson’s Secret Investigation 9. The Second Main Suspect: The Bayonet Killer 10. The Trials of Christer Pettersson 11. The Scapegoat Is Never Tarred 12. Conspiracy Theories 13. The Police Investigation Keels Over 14. Did Olof Palme Know His Killer? 15. Who Might Olof Palme Have Met? 16. The Crime of the Century

Notes Sources Index

vii ix 1 14 25 39 60 76 88 98 112 132 144 158 175 184 196 209

213 227 229

ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece:Olof Palme in the 1980s 1. Olof Palme in 1969 2. Olof and Lisbet Palme in 1985 3. Olof Palme in Stockholm 4. The Grand cinema 5. Map of the murder scene 6. The murder site 7. The murder site with Tunnelgatan stairs 8. Official police sketch of the murder site 9. Hans Holmér at a press conference 10. The Phantom and the Shadow 11. First police lineup 12. Caricature of Olof Palme 13. Anti-Palme propaganda posters 14. Carl Lidbom 15. Two drawings of the Grand Man 16. Christer Pettersson in April 1986 17. New police lineup 18. The witness Anders Björkman 19. The killer walks up to the Palmes (police reconstruction) 20. The killer runs up the Tunnelgatan (police reconstruction)

3 7 8 10 12 28 30 51 53 58 67 81 83 101 114 120 129 154 189 190

PREFACE: THE EIGHTYNINE STEPS

The murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme, in the late evening of February 28, 1986, was a cataclysmic event in twentieth-century Swedish history. It shocked the nation profoundly, forced social and political change, and had an impact similar to that of the murder of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas twenty-one years earlier. The murder of Olof Palme is still unsolved and likely to remain so. The official police investigation is not making any headway, and most Swedes have accepted that the truth about the death of their prime min- ister, shot in the back after going to the cinema without bodyguards, will never be known. There are already more books about Palme dead than about Palme alive, and the number of weird theories and urban legends about the murder is steadily growing. Some commentators have wondered whether the actual in- tention of the establishment and police was to spread disinformation and thereby shield the real culprits from justice, and others speculate about an elaborate conspiracy to assassinate Palme, involving some of the most promi- nent in the land. Similar mystery and suspicion surround the arrest of Chris- ter Pettersson, a down-and-out alcoholic, as Palme’s murderer. Pettersson was freed after two dramatic trials and continued to live in the Swedish capital until his sudden death in September 2004. Had the authorities intended this Swedish Lee Harvey Oswald to be the “ideal murderer,” an unprepossessing figure whom no one would have missed? Was it vainly hoped that the convic- tion of Pettersson would resolve Sweden’s national trauma? This book is the first in English to present the full history of this ex- traordinary case. In it, I investigate the witness testimony, suspects, and trials, 1 and suggest a new theory to solve the mystery. Compared with the Kennedy