Who shot Olof Palme? Comments on Jan Stocklassa’s book

There are books where it is equally important what the author avoids writing than what he writes. I think Jan Stocklassa’s work is one of those books. In the very beginning he explains who all hated Palme, but strangely forgets that Palme compared the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza to the treatment of Jews during the Second World War and asked Arafat to visit him in Sweden.

The book is divided into two parts. In the first part Stieg Larsson investigates Palme’s murder. Though Stocklassa bases his text on letters and other material written by Larsson and on interviews with people who knew Larsson at that time, I found the fictional parts where Larsson is supposed to be doing this or that and for this or that motive rather dull. We cannot know it. I think it would have been more interesting to read what Stocklassa thought about Larsson’s theory as he had his own and quite different theory.

In the second part Stocklassa travels to many countries and interviews people associated with the Palme murder. He actually does not get much information through these interviews, but at least it sounds real, unlike the fiction of Larsson’s actions and thoughts. Stocklassa is not a poor writer. I yawned several times while reading the book, but not exceedingly. I remember advising my master students that a good Master’s Thesis is a three yawn’s work: it should not be too exciting, neither too dull. Stocklassa’s book was much longer than a Master’s Thesis, to maybe the number of yawns stayed in this figure. As a non-fiction book it could have been compressed to a much smaller number of pages, but then one would lose the descriptions of the interviews. I would not have much minded that, as I mostly look for the hard content.

This is not a fiction book and a conspiracy book therefore must be evaluated by the theory it presents and the arguments it uses to defend the theory. In the final pages Stocklassa ends to a theory that Palme was shot by a conspiracy where:

• South African intelligence did a dirty work for Western powers.
• The reason was arms trade to South Africa and connected with the Iran-Contragate.
• The argument what Palme exactly did to deserve death was not explained.
• South Africans looked for a patsy from extreme rightist groups, but they declined and warned the Swedish police.
• Some people in the Swedish civilian intelligence (SÄPO) and the Swedish police were involved in the conspiracy, but the information that Palme went to a movie was obtained by listening his telephone or by surveillance.
• There was a group of assassins from South Africa and one of them shot Palme. A person whom Stocklassa calls Jakob Thedelin was involved in the conspiracy but did not pull the trigger. He was intended as a patsy but managed to escape.
• Bertil Wedin was a middleman in the conspiracy.

What do I think about this theory? Jakob Thedelin aka David Fredin as the following blog notes

https://tobiashubinette.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/olof-palme-extremhogern-2/

was under 30 years in 1986 when Palme was murdered. According to eyewitnesses the murderer was 30-45 years old. Though native Swedes look probably younger than people with some Mediterranean ancestry (Thedelin is Jewish and made an Aliyah to Israel and for these reasons may have some Jewish ancestry) and the age may not be an obstacle, I still find it a bit odd that the eyewitnesses would have mistaken the age of the murderer so much. Stocklassa’s book has a photo of Thedelin in 1986 and he looks young. Stocklassa has demonstrated that Thedelin’s photo is similar to the drawing of the murderer produced by a German team from eyewitness statements, but Thedelin is 44 in that photo. Additionally, it is not certain if the key eyewitness saw the murderer or someone else.

Stocklassa’s proofs are mainly hacked emails between Thedelin and Bertil Wedin. The story how he got the hacked emails is curious. He tells that he wondered why a good looking girl is a friend in Thedelin’s Facebook page, sends a mail to her and gets an answer “what do you want?”after one year. Stocklassa travels to Prague to meet the girl, who turns out to be jewish and look different than in the Facebook photo. (But she has tattoos and a friend, who can hack computers, like Lisbeth Salander.) The Jewish girl wants to help Stocklassa to uncover her Jewish friend Thedelin and later Stocklassa gets a mail from the girl. There is hacked email conversation between Bertil Wedin and Jakob Thedelin and emails where the girl persuades Thedelin to tell if he murdered Palme. Thedelin is an ardent Palme-hater still 30 years after Palme’s death, so he mostly writes of Palme anyway. (This is in the book, the real person corresponding to Thedelin need not be any Palme hater.) Thedelin does not confess to a murder. The girl comes to Sweden and meets Thedelin for six days, equipped with all spystuff. Finally Thedelin escapes to Israel. The girl suggests that she has a friend from Mossad, who can squeeze a confession from Thedelin in no time. Does this sound believable? To me it sounds that either the girl is an imaginary character or she is Mossad or KGB or some other intelligence agency. (See the comment below from a person who knows the girl and says she was KGB.)

I would bet the latter possibility. Socklassa writes having studied Palme’s murder for eight years. That would be eight years before 2017 meaning he started in 2009. The first letter from Bertil Wedin to Thedelin is dated 2009 and it says that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) tell of thunder and crash in a bunker with the sound that is heard after the bombs fall which comes from rackets that do not return. To Stocklassa this communication refers to the murder weapon that Thedelin supposedly was hiding in his safe deposit box, not checked by the police and there was no gun. To me this sounds like Wedelin had heard that Stocklassa was investigating him and Thedelin, he contacted Thedelin, who at that time had Israel connections being Jewish by religion. Some IDF spokeman told that this is just thunder in a bunker, they are safe, and the sound there will be after the bomb of Stocklassa’s book falls, will come from rackets that do not return as they will not hit them, that is, the police will not get interested in them, probably for the reason that these two gentlemen were not the killers of Palme even though they did not like Palme’s politics.

Ignoring Wedin and Thedelin Stocklassa’s theory is quite reasonable, provided we add the name he tries to suppress: Palme’s very probably was connected with arms trade to South Africa. This is much more probable than that the motive for the murder was Olof Palme’s support for the ANC. South Africa assassinated several ANC activists and Palme did give a talk in Sweden against apartheid in a meeting of the Swedish People’s Parliament Against Apartheid in Stockholm a week before he was murdered and said that apartheid must be abolished. But assassinations are planned for a longer time and what Palme said a week before had not relevance. Stocklassa thinks that the decision to kill Palme was made in the summer 1985 when he returned to power.

The book tells that Stieg Larsson claimed that Palme tried to tighten the arms embargo against South Africa. United Nations Security Council had already in 1977 passed the Resolution 418 demanding a total arms embargo against South Africa. This resolution tightened the earlier voluntary arms embargo. There were many voices willing to tighten the arms embargo and in November 1986, after Palme’s death, the arms embargo was tightened by Resolution 591. Sweden was not in the Security Council of the UN. Sweden could not have changed this resolution and Palme’s activities were not essential in it. I do not buy Larsson’s argument.

How about inverting Larsson’s argument? Palme did not try to tighten the arms embargo. He was planning a proposal to release the arms embargo and as an exchange get improvements in the position of blacks in South Africa. It might have been a partial removal of apartheid in exchange of removal of the arms embargo, which just at that time was very difficult for South Africa. Palme was actively trying to sell weapons of Bofors to India, thus there is no reason to expect that Palme was personally against arms trade. His interests included helping Swedish weapon export and he was actively trying to improve the position of suppressed people.

Does it fit to Palme’s character? Yes. Palme made deals. He was not a fundamentalist on these issues. He had invited Arafat to Sweden in 1977 and when Arafat left, he was willing to accept the existence of Israel and call off all terrorism. Palme must have promised Arafat something and this something was not liked by everybody in Israel as we well known how the Israel-Palestina conflict developed. The extreme right suspected that Palme was going to sell Sweden to the Soviet Union, which implies that Palme was working on a deal also in that direction. Palme tried to negotiate a deal between Iran and Iraq. Palme could very possibly have been preparing a deal between South Africa and ANC as well.

Who would have been against such a deal? For South Africa it would have been better to have the arms embargo lifted and to be able to buy weapons from other countries. ANC most probably was not against such a deal. But there were the arms dealers who were selling guns to South Africa. They would have lost a profitable market.

There were three UN members breaking this resolution: Israel, Chile and Paraguay. The main weapon provider for South Africa was Israel. In 1975 Israel and South Africa had made a secret Israel – South Africa agreement. In 1986 Israel was just finishing the extremely expensive development of the  Lavi fighter aircraft and expected to sell a large number of fighters to South Africa. Sweden was at that time developing its Jas Gripen fighter. It was also an expensive development project and Sweden also wanted to export the plane.

Then there was the South African nuclear weapon program. South Africa developed nuclear weapons and as the only country so far destroyed its nuclear weapon after apartheid collapsed. Naturally, during the apartheid era South African had very few partners to work with. The nuclear weapon was developed in a joint project with Israel. For Israel both the Lavi fighters and the nuclear weapon were vital economic and military interests.

Then comes the Iran-Contra affair. Stocklassa describes it as involving the USA, Iran, Nicaragua and South Africa and mentions two European arms dealers, one of which is Swedish Karl-Erik Schmitz. Strangely, Stocklasse forgets Israel’s prominent role in this affair.  Israel was selling weapons to Iran through Karl-Erik Schmitz and was paid in oil.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/12/03/Report-says-Israel-supplied-Iran-via-Sweden/4889565506000/

Karl-Erik Schmitz did have dealings with South Africa as well, but South Africa had stopped them. The issue was that earlier Schmitz was buying fertilizers from South Africa, turning to gunpowder and selling to Iran. South Africa was paid in oil by Iran, but then South Africa made a deal with Iraq, got oil from there and did not need Iran or Schmitz.

So, Stocklassa mentioned one Swedish businessman, who was involved in the Irangate, Jan-Erik Schmitz. It may be interesting to mention that millionaire Eva Rausing (born Eva Louise Kemeny, buried in a Jewish cemetery) wrote a mail in 2011 to Swedish prosecutors and to a Swedish journalist that behind Palme’s murder was a Swedish businessman who was afraid that Palme was a threat to his business. She died on July 2012 soon after newspapers revealed The UK police suspected the husband of murdering her.

Many details in Stocklassa’s theory sound correct. It was a conspiracy and not a lone madman. Some people in the Swedish security police SÄPO and in the Swedish police probably were in the conspiracy. Also Leif G.W. Persson thinks so. Somebody did contact Swedish rightist groups before the assassination and it is very possible that the goal was to find a patsy. But there was no patsy in this assassination and I do not think Thedelin was the man seen running up the steps after the murder. If Thedelin was intended as a patsy, as Stocklassa thinks, and he would have managed to escape, I doubt he would have been left alive. To me Thedelin looks like just another infiltrator.

I suspect the usual culprit, as the same culprit has so often turned up in other conspiracies, like 9/11 and JFK. That does not mean Palme’s assassination was made by the Jews. Actually there are Jews in many roles. The South African communist activist and a friend of Palme, Ruth First, was Jewish. She was killed by Craig Williamson from South African intelligence. But Jack Abramoff, the founder of International Freedom Fundation working for apartheid and with close and friendly connections to Craig Williamson was also Jewish. The Palme hater and right wing extremist Jakob Thedelin of the book referred to a Jewish person (who probably is not any Palme hater), the Lisbeth Salander -type girl who spied Thedelin – provided she existed – was also Jewish. Nicely, no Finns were associated with the Palme murder. Maybe we are just not so conspirational. Seems that the extreme right did not murder Palme. I did find one nazi from this story: Olov Palme, not the murdered premier but his uncle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme_(historian)

This uncle Olov Palme was born in Porvoo. He sent Swedish volunteers to help the Whites in the civil war. It apparently was the news of the death of this Olof Palme (died 3. April 1918) that the far rightists left to the reception of the Prime Minister’s office just before Palme was murdered, this was the warning. Palme was shot 28. February 1986, so the dates do not explain why to inform of the other Olof Palme’s death just at that time. It was a warning, so the extreme right knew of the plan, but decided to warn Palme. Strange.

I got one comment to this post. The commenter claims to be the person described in Stocklassa’s book, I have no way of checking it. He claims that Palme was killed by KGB. I have not thought of this possibility yet, so I recommend reading his comment.