Novelist gave papers to police he said showed links with former military officer he suspected of killing prime minister, says report
Sweden's greatest unsolved murder has taken another twist – revelations that the crime writer Stieg Larsson had sent documents to police that he claimed linked Olof Palme's death to South Africa.
The Svenska Dagbladet newspaper reported on Tuesday that Larsson sent police 15 boxes of papers he said linked the shooting of the Swedish prime minister in 1986 to a former military officer said to have had links with the South African security services.
The latest report has made headlines across Sweden, where, just as with the assassination of John F Kennedy in the US, Palme's killing has spawned numerous conspiracy theories.
Palme, a vocal critic of the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time, was shot as he walked along a street in central Stockholm on 28 February 1986 after going to the cinema with his wife.
A petty criminal was found guilty of the crime in 1989 but was released later that year on appeal. Police were widely accused of bungling the investigation.
The Swede Larsson claimed to have killed the prime minister, Bertil Wedin, denied being involved and told Svenska Dagbladet: "I have nothing to lose from the truth being established since I am luckily not the murderer."
Sweden's deputy prosecutor general, Kerstin Skarp, who leads the continuing murder inquiry, told the newspaper that Wedin "is not someone that we are pursuing with any intensity at the moment".
Wedin is not new to the investigation. His name cropped up in the 1990s amid intense media speculation about a possible South African connection in the case.
The killing triggered numerous private investigations, including Larsson's. There have been so many that a word was coined for this civilian sleuths – "privatspanare", or private scouts.
Some claimed to have cracked the case with theories ranging from Palme's death being a carefully enacted suicide to the work of foreign spy agencies.
Private investigators have pointed the finger at an array of people and institution, from Sweden's security services to Kurdish separatists and the South African and Yugoslav secret police.
Palme, Social Democrat prime minister between 1969 and 1976 and again between 1982 and 1986, was condemned by conservatives in Sweden and overseas for his anti-colonial views and criticism of the US. Some even believed he was a spy for the KGB.
Books by Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004, have sold more than 75m copies in 50 countries.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in his Millennium trilogy, was made into a Hollywood film with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in 2011. Reported by guardian.co.uk 55 minutes ago.
Sweden's greatest unsolved murder has taken another twist – revelations that the crime writer Stieg Larsson had sent documents to police that he claimed linked Olof Palme's death to South Africa.
The Svenska Dagbladet newspaper reported on Tuesday that Larsson sent police 15 boxes of papers he said linked the shooting of the Swedish prime minister in 1986 to a former military officer said to have had links with the South African security services.
The latest report has made headlines across Sweden, where, just as with the assassination of John F Kennedy in the US, Palme's killing has spawned numerous conspiracy theories.
Palme, a vocal critic of the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time, was shot as he walked along a street in central Stockholm on 28 February 1986 after going to the cinema with his wife.
A petty criminal was found guilty of the crime in 1989 but was released later that year on appeal. Police were widely accused of bungling the investigation.
The Swede Larsson claimed to have killed the prime minister, Bertil Wedin, denied being involved and told Svenska Dagbladet: "I have nothing to lose from the truth being established since I am luckily not the murderer."
Sweden's deputy prosecutor general, Kerstin Skarp, who leads the continuing murder inquiry, told the newspaper that Wedin "is not someone that we are pursuing with any intensity at the moment".
Wedin is not new to the investigation. His name cropped up in the 1990s amid intense media speculation about a possible South African connection in the case.
The killing triggered numerous private investigations, including Larsson's. There have been so many that a word was coined for this civilian sleuths – "privatspanare", or private scouts.
Some claimed to have cracked the case with theories ranging from Palme's death being a carefully enacted suicide to the work of foreign spy agencies.
Private investigators have pointed the finger at an array of people and institution, from Sweden's security services to Kurdish separatists and the South African and Yugoslav secret police.
Palme, Social Democrat prime minister between 1969 and 1976 and again between 1982 and 1986, was condemned by conservatives in Sweden and overseas for his anti-colonial views and criticism of the US. Some even believed he was a spy for the KGB.
Books by Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004, have sold more than 75m copies in 50 countries.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in his Millennium trilogy, was made into a Hollywood film with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara in 2011. Reported by guardian.co.uk 55 minutes ago.