| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 59.1 | Shocked and stunned | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Feb 28 1986 23:39 | 20 |
| I too, was shocked to learn on the late night news here in the U.S.
of the death of Prime Minister Palme. The report said that he was
shot while attending a movie premier in Stockholm. Police were
said to be cordoning off the city, and looking for at least one
dark-haired gunman dressed in a long dark overcoat.
It is disturbing to all of us to consider that uncontroversial Sweden
has to suffer from activities we normally associate with less stable
societies.
The only controversy surrounding Mr. Palme that I can recall had
to do with his being an early outspoken critic (among international
leaders) of U.S. conduct of the Vietnam war. I can't imagine what
terrorist group could be behind this - perhaps a crazy person, as
in the attempt on President Reagan?
My deepest sympathies go out to the Swedish people.
Neil
|
| 59.2 | More on the Palme assassination | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Sat Mar 01 1986 16:36 | 32 |
| Gleaned from various Associated Press releases:
Prime minister Palme was shot on the street outside of the theater
where he and his wife, Lisbeth, were to attend the premier of the
film, "The Brothers Mozart" by Swedish filmmaker, Suzanne Osten.
Lisbeth was grazed by one of the bullets fired by the assailant,
whose identity is unknown at time. The assassin was described as
a man 30 to 45 years old, five foot seven inches tall, wearing a cap
with folded-up ear flaps and a long blue insulated jacket. The
culprit is said to have fled the scene in a small car.
With minutes of when the shooting took place, local citizens heaped
flowers on the spot were Palme was slain. Someone tied a bouquet of
white daisies to the door handle of the Palmes' Stockholm apartment.
The assasination of a major Swedish political figure had not happened
since 1772, when King Gustaf III was shot and killed at an opera
masked ball. Palme is scheduled to be buried on March 15.
Already an annonymous telephone caller has attributed the killing
to a German left-wing terrorist group called the Holger Meins Commando.
Police taking a skeptical position, but this was the gang that seized
the West German embassy in Stockholm on April 24, 1975, and killed
12 hostages.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson (a close associate
and friend of the late Prime Minister) has assumed the duties of
Prime Minister, and is certain to get the parliamentary approvals
needed to succeed Olaf Palme.
Neil
|
| 59.3 | Occupation of West German embassy. | BEAGLE::MULELID | | Sun Mar 02 1986 09:56 | 6 |
| Re .2
Two hostages where killed and one of the terrorists. One terrorist
died later just after being sendt back to Germany.
Svein
|
| 59.4 | Swedes in mourning | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Sun Mar 02 1986 11:51 | 7 |
| The AP wire reports that more than 10,000 Swedes gathered in central
Stockholm for a memorial candlelight service for Olof Palme on Saturday
night
An estimated 300 people per hour file through the main government
building in Stockholm to add their signatures to a rememberance
book.
|
| 59.5 | More on the Swedish people in mourning | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Mon Mar 03 1986 09:05 | 72 |
| Associated Press Mon 03-MAR-1986 06:12 Palme-Mourning
By GUNILLA FARINGER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Silent in their sorrow, Swedes came to
the downtown stretch of sidewalk where their prime minister was
slain to honor his memory with bunches of flowers and handwritten
notes.
``You represented everything we believe in: freedom, equality
and brotherhood,'' read one piece of paper left near cobblestones
now stained with Olof Palme's blood. ``We will carry on your
struggle.''
In the western port of Goteborg, about 70,000 people marched in
a torchlight procession to mourn the 59-year-old socialist leader,
shot as he walked home with his wife Friday from a film premiere.
Young people, families with small children, the elderly and many
immigrants gathered at a downtown Goteborg square Sunday night and
marched up a broad tree-lined avenue whose streetlights had been
dimmed to increase the brillance of 10,000 torches.
The mourners then gathered to hear memorial speeches at a large
square in front of the Goteborg concert hall, where Palme
traditionally ended his election campaigns. Last year, 7,000 people
turned out despite lashing rains to hear his last campaign speech
before the September general election.
About 600 Swedes gathered Sunday for a solemn memorial service
in Stockholm's ancient Great Church cathedral, which was decorated
with red roses, the flower of Palme's Social Democratic Party.
``There are no words to describe the detest and dismay we feel,
confronted with the murder of our prime minister,'' the Rev. Berith
Oehrnberg told parishoners, some of whom wept. ``Many think it
happens in the U.S.A, in Beirut, but not here in our country.''
Oehrnberg, a pastor in Sweden's state Lutheran church, then read
a special prayer sent throughout the country by Stockholm Bishop
Krister Stendahl.
``Into your hands we commend Olof Palme, his life and his work''
the prayer said. ``Let us not mourn as if we had no hope.''
Palme's Social Democratic party said he would be buried
privately March 15, in accordance with family wishes. It said the
party, not the government, would handle funeral arrangements.
Social Minister Gertrud Sigurdsen said there would be no
official declaration of national mourning. ``The spontaneous
reaction of mourning, how people reacted, was correct,'' she said.
As night fell in this northern capital, Swedes continued their
pilgrimages to the site of Palme's assassination, braving frigid
temperatures to stand on the snow-covered pavement among the
candles, flowers and written tributes to Palme, many composed in
the languages of immigrants to Sweden.
Palme was known for his sympathy for the hundreds of thousands
of people from southern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East
who came to Sweden to find better jobs or escape repressive
governments.
``We will remember what you did for us,'' read one note signed,
``An Immigrant.''
``We mourn you,'' another said. ``Long live what you stood for.''
``Why murder a true democrat?'' asked a sign left near a
portrait of Palme.
``Never put your foot here,'' one handwritten note appealed to
mourners at the site. ``The pavement is wide enough. Let us place a
monument here.''
Palme's widow, Lisbet, 55, remained in seclusion with her sons
at the family's home in Stockholm's Old City district. She was also
grazed by a bullet in the Friday night attack, but was not
seriously injured.
|
| 59.6 | | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Wed Mar 05 1986 12:27 | 113 |
| Associated Press Wed 05-MAR-1986 08:36 Palme
Police Suspect Hit Man In Killing Of Palme
By STEPHEN H. MILLER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Swedish national radio today reported
that Stockholm police have a sketch of the killer of Prime Minister
Olof Palme, drawn by a woman artist who may have been the only
witness to see the assassin's face.
The 22-year-old woman, the radio said, briefly saw the suspected
killer under a streetlight and was able to draw a sketch of his
face.
Police refused to comment on the radio report.
Palme, 59, was shot to death Friday night as he and his wife
Lisbet, 55, walked home from a movie along a downtown Stockholm
street. At Palme's direction, no bodyguards were with them at the
time.
Police say they have had several claims of responsibility from
callers claiming to represent West German's terrorist Red Army
Faction or the Holder Meins Commando, an offshoot of the Red Army
Faction.
The national radio reported that police hope to show the woman's
sketch to West German terrorist experts.
The killer has been described by police, based on the statements
of witnesses, as a man about 5-feet-7-inches tall. He reportedly
wore a quilted blue jacket and a hat with earflaps.
Police say they suspected Palme's assassin was a professional
hit man, and denied that he got away because authorities reacted
too slowly. They said it was possible the killer was in radio
contact with a waiting accomplice.
Stockholm police Commissioner Hans Holmer, discussing Palme's
assassination, told a television interviewer Tuesday, that "there
are professional murderers who are hired by terrorist organizations
or hired by others or sometimes work alone."
He said that based on the bullets used and the close range from
which the gunman fired, "I have come to the conclusion that this
man is a professional in the underworld."
Dr. Birger Schantz, a professor at the Swedish Defense Research
Agency, was quoted by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter as saying the
path of the bullet indicated the killer was a professional who knew
where to hit his victim.
Schantz, a specialist on bullet wounds, said the bullet pierced
a vertebra, Palme's main artery and windpipe, and exited through
his chest. He said Palme died instantly.
At a news conference earlier, Holmer said Palme's killer
apparently had an accomplice. He said a taxi driver saw the killer
get into the passenger side of a waiting car, which then sped away.
Holmer denied Stockholm newspaper charges that an alert about
the killing was delayed for several minutes at police headquarters,
and said police were at the site two to three minutes after patrol
cars received the alert.
He said the taxi driver who alerted police to the shooting
called them at 11:23 p.m. (5:23 p.m. EST), and police computers
showed the alarm going out to patrol cars that same minute.
"We had 14 cars taking part in the hunt immediately after the
alert," Holmer said, adding that "we have in this respect been as
fast as it is reasonable to demand."
Critics also have asserted that police had not adequately closed
routes out of the city.
But Holmer said "it would not have been realistically feasible
with such a vague description of the killer" to check people
leaving the city, "and we had so many other options to consider."
Stockholm police also have been criticized for appealing through
the press Sunday for help in identifying the murder bullet. The
next day it was discovered such a bullet could be bought in
Stockholm's leading sporting goods store.
"I asked you for help," Holmer said in defense of his Sunday
appeal. "And the next day you blame us for not knowing."
Police say Palme, who was in his fourth term as prime minister,
was killed by a .357-caliber Magnum revolver, one of the most
powerful handguns available.
The commissioner said investigators had received 4,000 tips
about the case and questioned 600 people.
Palme's Social Democratic Party, handling arrangements for the
slain prime minister's March 15 funeral, said that as many as 600
international representatives might attend.
Officials said Palme had asked his party to arrange his funeral
and wanted it to be a civil rather than church ceremony. U.N.
Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar was to be among those at
funeral in Stockholm's City Hall, they said.
Other foreign guests expected at the funeral, according to
today's newspapers, include Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi of India
and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega
and a representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Swedish television said the funeral cortege would proceed from
City Hall past the downtown intersection where Palme was shot.
|
| 59.7 | The Danish reaction | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Thu Mar 06 1986 12:48 | 18 |
| Associated Press Wed 05-MAR-1986 20:37 Palme-Procession
Thousands March in Torchlight Procession to Honor Palme
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Thousands of Danes marched through
the dark, windy streets of the capital Wednesday evening in a
torchlight procession to honor Olof Palme, the Swedish prime
minister assassinated last week in Stockholm.
The procession, which included banner-carrying contingents from
Denmark's many peace groups and trade union organizations, began at
the Swedish embassy in Copenhagen's city center and converged a
mile away at Christianborg Palace, the parliament building.
In a speech to the silent crowd, Social Democratic Party leader
and former prime minister Anker Joergensen paid tribute to Palme.
"Those who work for peace, work for mankind, and that's what
Olof Palme did," said Joergensen.
|
| 59.8 | Police have composite picture of killer | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Thu Mar 06 1986 12:59 | 106 |
| Associated Press Thu 06-MAR-1986 05:47 Palme
Swedish Police Release Composite of Suspect in Palme Assassination
By KENNETH JAUTZ
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Police today released a photograph-like
portrait of their suspect in the assassination of Prime Minister
Olof Palme - a dark-haired, dark-eyed man wearing a shirt open at
the collar.
The composite picture, the first such depiction, was distributed
to newspapers and television as the nationwide manhunt for the man
who killed the Swedish leader entered its sixth day.
The portrait also was to go to police throughout Sweden and to
border officials.
Palme, 59, was killed with a powerful .357-caliber Magnum
revolver last Friday as he strolled home unguarded with his wife,
Lisbet, 55, along a snowy downtown Stockholm street. She was grazed
by a bullet, but not seriously hurt.
Using a device brought to Stockholm Wednesday by two specialists
from West Germany's Federal Criminal Office, police were able to
transform witness descriptions into the portrait of the
tight-lipped, thin-faced man with medium-length hair.
Swedish television added extra newscasts to broadcast the
picture and interviewed officials who appealed for help finding the
man.
"This man may be dangerous," police spokesman Ulf Abrahamsson
told Swedish television. "If anyone recognizes him, call the
police. Do not take any action yourself."
Abrahamsson said police did not recognize the man, and added
that his picture would be sent to police agencies abroad.
However, the presence of the two West Germans for the
Wiesbaden-based office, which also is responsible for countering
terrorism, increased speculation that Swedish investigators believe
West German terrorists carried out the attack.
Swedish police say there have been several claims of
responsibility on behalf of the Red Army Faction and the Holger
Meins Commando, related left-wing West German terrorist groups.
Stockholm Police Commissioner Hans Holmer said a professional
draftswoman who "bumped into" a man shortly after Palme was
killed had drawn a sketch of that man for police, which the West
German instrument would be used to refine.
Holmer said the 22-year-old woman encountered the man,
identified by police as the suspected assassin, near the spot where
police believe at least one accomplice was waiting with a getaway
car.
Swedish television on Wednesday said police believe the getaway
car was a blue Volkswagen Passat, with Swedish license plates.
Meanwhile, police officials, criticized for their handling of
the investigation, announced they would hold daily briefings to
keep the public informed of progress in the case.
Critics earlier this week charged that police were not making
enough progess, and had made basic errors in the early stages of
the investigation.
But Holmer said at a news conference that investigators were
working on several ideas, and that the manhunt had become the
biggest search in Swedish history.
"A light goes on every time we get a clue," Holmer said.
"Some of them burn out, but at the moment we have a whole lot of
lights burning."
Despite a slight drizzle that lasted much of Wednesday, hundreds
of Swedes stood silently on slushy sidewalks near the site where
the lone gunman shot Palme in the back.
The Stockholm chapter of the Social Democratic party, which
Palme led, built a temporary wooden platform at the site.
Swedes piled red roses, a Social Democratic symbol, on the
platform and a flame burned in its center.
Aides to Palme said one of the last documents he signed was a
letter to a class of sixth-graders at a school on the island of
Gotland, endorsing their worldwide appeal for peace.
The 13-year-olds in Class 6A of the Solberga School at Visby
received the letter from Palme on Monday. It was postmarked Friday.
The children had written to Palme about their plan to set up a
group called "Children for Peace" and asked him to be the first
to sign a name list they wanted to send to other children.
In Copenhagen, Denmark, thousands of people marched Wednesday
night in a torchlight procession to honor Palme, whose slaying has
prompted worldwide expressions of outrage.
Anker Joergensen, leader of Denmark's Social Democrats and
former prime minister, told the marchers in front of the Parliament
building that Palme was "a symbol for a very large generation."
|
| 59.9 | | GYCSC1::ORA | This space intentionally not left blank | Fri Mar 07 1986 04:07 | 7 |
| According to this morning's "S�ddeutsche Zeitung" the picture wasn't
even shown to the witness and Palme's wife before they released
it. Sounds kind of stupid.
According to the newspaper, the picture was prepared based on the
sketch and verbal descritions of the witness(es).
|
| 59.10 | Funeral plans | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Mar 07 1986 11:14 | 32 |
| Associated Press Fri 07-MAR-1986 07:31 Palme
The Social Democratic Party, which Palme led for 17 years,
announced more details of his March 15 funeral. Services
will be held in Stockholm's towering waterside City Hall.
As many as 600 foreign guests are expected to attend, according
to party officials.
Police spokesman Kenneth Carlsson said authorities planned to
field "the largest securty apparatus that Sweden has ever seen"
for the funeral.
Carlsson told reporters that among nine speakers at the Palme
funeral would be U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar,
Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf and Ingvar Carlsson, Palme's successor.
Carlsson he said it would mark the first time in Swedish history
that a king had spoken at the funeral of a Swedish government
leader.
Stockholm newspapers today published what they said would be the
route of Palme's funeral cortege, a motorcade procession winding
through Stockholm's central square where Palme traditionally held
party May Day speeches.
Unlike an earlier route, also unconfirmed by party officials,
the new one would not pass the intersection where Palme was slain.
Six days after the slaying, mourners continued to lay flowers on
the street corner where Palme was shot, and filed into City Hall to
sign an official book of condolences.
|
| 59.11 | Palme eulogy | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Mar 07 1986 22:53 | 84 |
| Associated Press Fri 07-MAR-1986 20:23 Palme Memorial
Kissinger Says Palme Came to Influence His Thinking
By GENE KRAMER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Prominent and ordinary Americans of all
political stripes mourned Sweden's assassinated Prime Minister Olof
Palme as a man of peace Friday, including Henry Kissinger, who said
his thinking "was not complete" without Palme's insight.
The former secretary of state, long at odds with Palme over the
U.S. role in Vietnam, said in a eulogy that "Olof Palme - once one
knew him - was a gentle, caring and thoughtful friend."
Vice President George Bush wrote in the Swedish Embassy's
condolence book, "Our condolences to the great people of Sweden as
we mourn a man who loved peace."
Among 1,000 mourners at a memorial service that filled
Washington's National Presbyterian Church were Barbara Bush, the
vice president's wife, along with former Vice President Walter
Mondale, Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead and Sens.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Charles McC. Mathias, R-Md..
Kissinger told the gathering that due to "the anguish and
passions of the Vietnam period" he did not meet the prime minister
until Palme invited him to Sweden in 1976. "It was clear
immediately that Palme was an extraordinary personality,"
Kissinger added.
"We maintained an increasingly frequent and close contact,"
Kissinger said, during which "my own thinking, I felt, was not
complete without the benefit of Palme's insight, perspective and
devotion.
"...Transcending all controversies, Palme's passion was for the
best in Western values," Kissinger said. "Wherever peace
threatened or justice was denied or freedom was in jeopardy - in
the Middle East, in Central America, in South Africa, on the issue
of nuclear weapons - Palme was to be found at the cutting edge of
the debate."
"He strove tenaciously to find solutions to world problems,
many far distant from his own country, always intelligently, never
yielding to the counsels of tactical prudence. For his passion was
concentrated on making the free peoples worthy of the values they
avowed."
Eventually, Kissinger said, "I came to think of Olof Palme more
and more as a sentinel in the ramparts of freedom, warning,
cajoling, holding aloft a standard which contributed crucially to
dialectic by which liberty and human dignity achieve their
meaning."
In a eulogy, Mathias called Palme a politician who despite local
problems "made time for a broader constituency, the human race.
... He applied his thoughts to ... the awful fear of living in the
nuclear age."
The senator added that whenever Palme criticized America, "I
always felt it was because he knew how fine we might be and he
hated to see us fall short."
Kennedy said Palme was the rarest of modern men because he was
both a prophet and a prime minister.
"His compatriots in spirit, (Mahatma) Gandhi and Martin Luther
King, led movements" but not governments, Kennedy said. "Olof
Palme proved anew that what counts most is not the size of a man's
country but the scope of his vision and the depth of his soul."
Kennedy, surviving brother of two assassinated American
political leaders, President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert
Kennedy, brought some mourners to tears when he said, "Today I
regard him (Palme) as a brother, and if I may be permitted I would
apply to him now some words I spoke of Robert Kennedy."
The senator then paraphrased his 1968 eulogy for Robert Kennedy:
"Olof Palme saw war - and tried to stop it - let us pray that what
he was for us and what he wished for others will some day come to
pass for all the world."
|
| 59.12 | | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Mon Mar 10 1986 10:59 | 94 |
| Associated Press Mon 10-MAR-1986 09:18 Palme
Sweden Observes Minute of Silence for Palme
By STEPHEN H. MILLER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Trains ground to a halt, pedestrians
paused in the streets and members of Parliament stood quietly today
as Sweden observed a minute of silence to honor assassinated Prime
Minister Olof Palme.
Thousands of mourners, many weeping, stood in the streets near
the Stockholm intersection where the 59-year-old Social Democrat
was shot and fatally wounded while walking home unguarded with his
wife.
Lisbet Palme, 55, who was also slightly wounded in the Feb. 28
attack, sat with her three grown sons in Sweden's parliament, the
Riksdag, where a string ensemble played quietly before and after
the minute of silence.
A bouquet of yellow daffodils marked the socialist leader' empty
place among the hall's sleek wooden desks. His successor as party
leader, Ingvar Carlsson, sat quietly by Palme's seat.
"We are gathered here to honor Olof Palme, a great statesman, a
fighter for peace, a considerate family father and a good friend
and comrade," parliament speaker Inegemund Bengtsson said in a
memorial address.
Sweden's national railroad had made plans to halt at least 1,000
trains, and motorists had been told they could stop their cars to
honor Palme, described by Bengtsson as "the most brilliant
politician we ever had."
The parliament memorial marked the Palme family's first public
appearance since the shooting. They entered the hall just before
the moment of silence, and television cameras did not show them
during the minute of mourning.
The silent tribute, thought to be the largest such gesture ever
undertaken in this Scandinavian nation, came as Sweden's top police
officers continued to sift thousands of tips in the hunt for
Palme's killer.
Leif Hallberg, the information chief of the national police,
said Sunday that investigators still hoped to hear from the writer
of an anonymous letter who was thought to have passed the
streetcorner where Palme was shot two or three minutes after the
attack.
"This lead is as important today as yesterday," he said.
Sweden's national news agency, TT, reported Sunday night that
the letter sent police referred to two men who might be involved in
the killing. But Hallberg told The Associated Press, "We haven't
said that."
Police Commissioner Hans Holmer said Sunday that his
investigators, members of the largest criminal investigation ever
launched in Sweden, had received about 10,000 tips.
"It's a methodical investigation," Holmer said at his daily
news conference on the progress of the hunt for Palme's assassin.
"All tips will be carefully checked by a handful of people, by the
most experienced police in the homicide department."
He declined to confirm newspaper stories linking the letter to a
theory that a second suspect was near the shooting site and a
Swedish radio report saying that the letter mentioned a "weapon or
other material" related to the killing.
The Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported Sunday night
that police had interrogated one of their own detectives as a
suspect in the killing, and that the 35-year-old officer was
released after six witnesses said he was at a dance when the Palmes
were attacked.
An article in another Stockholm daily, Aftonbladet, said the
detective was to be questioned again today, although a witness to
the shooting had reportedly not recognized him in a police lineup.
But police superintendent Nils Linder was quoted by the TT news
agency as saying later in the day that investigators had confirmed
the stories of the detective and a companion, and that the two men
were "no longer interesting" to officers seeking Palme's killer.
Palme's civic funeral will be held Saturday in Stockholm's red
brick City Hall. Among approximately 600 foreign guests expected to
attend are U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India, and Nicaraguan President Daniel
Ortega.
|
| 59.13 | More about the killing of Palme | WHYNOT::ANKAN | Anders "ankan" �hgren | Tue Mar 11 1986 10:35 | 18 |
| On my way back from Boston to Valbonne i stopped in Stockholm (strange enough
it was about $200 cheaper for me to go through Stockholm, than directly to
Valbonne (Nice)). About 250000 people has 'visited' the place where Palme
was killed. Most of these people put a red rose (the symbol for the social
democrats) there. A flower store nearby sell about 200% more red roses than
usual... also, many people that look like the killer of Palme, prefer to stay
at home, afraid of people that want to revenge Palmes death...
A person outside Stockholm received a telephone call only 14 minutes after
the killing. The caller said that "Palme is dead"... this was before any
announcement of the murder was done. The persons number differ with one
digit from the Social Democrat press centre number... today the police
think that there were at least two or three people that palnned the
murder of Palme...
The message in Sweden right now is "Palmes voice in the world is forever gone,
don't let this stop Swedens word in the world"...
|
| 59.14 | U.S Sec'y of State to attend funeral | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Tue Mar 11 1986 10:55 | 12 |
| Associated Press Mon 10-MAR-1986 20:38 BRF--Shultz Sweden
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz will head
the U.S. delegation to the funeral on Saturday of Swedish Prime
Minister Olof Palme, the State Department announced Monday.
Other members of the U.S. delegation will be Assistant Secretary
of State for European Affairs Rozanne Ridgway and U.S. Ambassador
to Sweden Gregory Newell, deputy spokesman Charles Redman said.
[Moderator's comment: I'd have more pleased if at least we sent
Vice President Bush along also.]
|
| 59.15 | International celebrities to attend | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Wed Mar 12 1986 10:07 | 6 |
| Associated Press Wed 12-MAR-1986 07:36 Palme (cont'd)
Private guests include American actor Paul Newman, who like
Palme attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio; Yoko Ono, the widow
of slain Beatle John Lennon, and Bishop Desmond Tutu of South
Africa.
|
| 59.16 | | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Mar 14 1986 11:04 | 67 |
| Associated Press Thu 13-MAR-1986 18:09 Palme
Man Arrested in Palme Investigation
By STEPHEN H. MILLER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Police announced their first arrest Thurday in
the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. His attorneys described the
man as an anti-communist Swede with no record of criminal acts or
violence.
Authorities said they hoped to announce more arrests soon. The first
suspect, picked up Wednesday night, was not charged immediately and his
lawyers predicted he would be freed.
Henning Sjostrom, whose firm is defending the arrested man, said he
came from a religious home and his only contact with weapons occurred
while he worked as a private guard about five years ago. The suspect's
name was not released by the police or the lawyers.
"The man denies all complicity in the murder and is shocked and
stressed at being suspected," Sjostrom said on Swedish radio.
Sjostrom, one of Sweden's leading defense attorneys, said his client
had a "negative political attitude toward Palme," but many Swedes
shared that feeling.
"If this person is involved, it's a question of a person with a burning
idea leading to the ultimate consequences," the attorney said in a
television interview. "But his personality doesn't fit."
Sjostrom said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that
the suspect, about 35 and from the Stockholm area, had been "at and
around" the scene when Palme was shot and bore a "certain resemblance"
to a composite portrait of the man thought to be the killer.
The man probably was arrested because he gave conflicting accounts of
his whereabouts that night, Sjostrom said, and because of notes he had
made about his political views. He said police confiscated the notes
during a search of the man's home after an initial 10 hours of
interrogation.
His client had been freed after the interrogation, Sjostrom told The
Associated Press, but he was arrested after the search of his home.
The defense attorney said the man had been with various people near the
shooting site and some had suggested him to police as a suspect.
Sjostrom said police found no weapon at the man's home.
In the telephone interview with the AP, he said the man was "very
anticommunist" and had "a strong political view, but he did not belong
to any extremist organization. I am sure he will be released."
Police inspector Ulf Abrahamsson said on television, "We are pursuing
the investigation as broadly as before and we hope we shall have more
arrests."
Palme was shot with a .357-caliber Magnum revolver. Police have not
ruled out the possibility of a lone assassin, although they said they
thought the killer had at least one accomplice.
At least 40 people are believed to have been detained for questioning,
but attorney Jan Sjoberg of Sjostrom's office said none had been
formally arrested.
|
| 59.17 | Palme funeral | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Sat Mar 15 1986 20:28 | 112 |
| Associated Press Sat 15-MAR-1986 16:33
Thousands Honor Palme at Funeral Under Heavy Guard
By STEPHEN H. MILLER
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Tens of thousands of Swedes stood silently
Saturday as Prime Minister Olof Palme's white casket was drawn through
the streets from an international funeral to a quiet churchyard burial.
Soldiers in plumed helmets tapped drums muffled in black as teams of
young people pulled Palme's catafalque along the route, church bells
pealed and red Social Democratic Party flags fluttered.
Before a funeral audience of royalty, world leaders and ranking envoys,
Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson praised his predecessor as a "free and
powerful bird, killed in full flight."
King Carl XVI Gustaf, standing over Palme's rose-covered casket, told
Swedes they had lost "a voice everyone listened to." U.N.
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar described Palme as the
"quintessential man of peace."
Representatives of 120 nations gathered for the funeral organized by
Sweden's governing Social Democratic Party, which Palme led for 17
years until he was shot Feb. 28 by an unidentified assassin while
walking the streets of the capital with his wife Lisbet.
They gathered in the lofty Blue Hall of riverside City Hall, guarded
outside by a small naval vessel stationed in icy waters.
"This is the hour to say goodbye to a beloved younger brother," said
former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Brandt, 72, was an old
friend and political ally of the 59-year-old Palme.
Brandt was the last of nine speakers at the funeral attended by 1,500
guests. After reading his prepared text in English, he spoke to Palme's
family in Norwegian: "Your loss is our loss."
Palme's deeds, he said, using the language he learned as a refugee in
Scandinavia during World War II, "will prove stronger than violence."
Palme's widow followed the casket from the hall, walking beside one of
her three grown sons. They were followed by 280 bearers of red Social
Democratic district flags, who stood quietly on a long balcony
throughout the funeral.
Three thousand Social Democratic honor guards lined the route of the
funeral cortege, some bowing their heads as the casket passed in the
fading light of a cold, overcast afternoon.
Swedish radio said up to 150,000 people lined the procession route,
which wound past Palme's office, the Swedish parliament and the royal
palace on its way to central Stockholm and the churchyard.
Hundreds of party banner-bearers lined the route, joining the
procession as it progressed to the cemetery of the 18th-century Adolf
Fredrik Church, until nearly 1,000 red party flags, each trimmed in
black mourning crape, followed the casket. The casket, decorated with
the red roses that covered it during the funeral, rested on a
red-draped catafalque.
Palme's family followed the casket in black limousines. Foreign
officials remained at City Hall for security reasons and to hold
informal, private meetings.
Dusk was falling as the procession reached the churchyard, where
Stockholm Bishop Krister Stendahl of Sweden's Lutheran state church,
who was a friend of Palme's, officiated at a burial attended only by
family members and a few close associates.
Lights burned inside the yellow stucco church as the family assembled
in the graveyard outside.
Sweden's national news agency TT said two men were detained earlier
Saturday on suspicion of planning to disturb the funeral procession.
The two, said to have been apprehended near the funeral procession
route, were taken away for questioning, the agency added, without
providing details. Police spokesman Leif Hallberg said he was unaware
of the incident.
Police canceled their regular daily news conference on the progress of
the hunt for Palme's killer, saying they had "nothing new to report."
A man arrested Wednesday for suspected involvement in the killing was
to be held at least until Sunday, said Stockholm Chief Prosecutor K. G.
Svensson. Defense attorneys have described their client as a Swedish
anti-communist about 35 years old with no criminal record, and have
predicted his release. Under Swedish law, he could be held until Monday
without further action by the prosecutor.
The funeral, a civic ceremony as requested by Palme long before his
death, drew together foreign officials who were expected to hold talks.
While other dignitaries arrived in escorted limousines, Israeli Prime
Minister Shimon Peres went on foot to the City Hall because of
religious restrictions preventing him from riding in an automobile on
Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. He walked briskly, accompanied by Swedish
police and his own bodyguards.
U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz arranged a meeting with Soviet
Premier Nicolai I. Ryskhkov, and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sat
next to East German President Erich Honecker at the ceremony itself.
Saturday night, thousands of people filed through the churchyard to pay
respects at Palme's flower-covered grave. Many tossed roses across a
police barrier onto the grave, bowing their heads briefly before moving
on.
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, also carrying a single rose, was
among those who visited the gravesite.
|
| 59.18 | Swedish Obituary | REX::MINOW | Martin Minow, DECtalk Engineering | Sun Mar 16 1986 22:39 | 184 |
|
He won renown around the world, Olof Palme. No other contemporary
Swedish politician has won such recognition outside Sweden as Olof
Palme.
<>
He awakened feelings. His domestic politics were both appreciated and
despised. But these opposing feelings could not hide the pride Swedes
felt for their intelligent prime-minister who was fluent in so many
languages: he made his little arctic nation more important than it
actually was. The leaders of other countries knew who he was. They
listened.
It is no accident that, for example, Nicaragua proclaimed three days of
national mourning because of Olof Palme's tragic death. His friends
were in the small poor nations: in Africa and in Latin America.
<>
He himself came from the upper class; son of Gunnar Palme, managing
director of the Thule Insurance Company and his wife, the Baltic
noblewoman Elisabeth von Knieriem.
In Sweden, his mother became an active member of the Conservative Party.
Palme remembered His own childhood as marked by illness: tuberculosis
and traumatic erysipelas. Lying in bed, the child learned to read
early. There was nothing else for him to do.
<>
His father died of asthma when Olof Palme was six years old. The son
was raised -- normally for the upper class -- by sending him to Sigtuna
boarding school.
This upper-class background has followed him through the years. It was
often used against him by political opponents who would question the
truth of his commitment.
Olof Palme himself claimed that his experience of poverty during summer
visits to his uncle in Latvia hastened a political awakening. But he
had a long path to follow before politics: cavalry reserve officer,
volunteer journalist at Svenska Dagbladet, law degree in Stockholm,
employment in the defense department, student union work...
He went to the United States on scholarship, hitch-hiking through 34
states, studying at [Kenyon] college.
The young politician received early recognition, at times regarded as
quick-tounged and gifted. A small article in [the newspaper]
Aftonbladet said that Palme's speech was "like cotton candy sprinkled
with acid."
By that time, Olof Palme was an assistant to [then Prime Minister] Tage
Erlander. After a recommendation by Ragnar Edenman in the Department of
Education, Erlander employed Palme as his personal assistant. They
became an inseparable pair, loyal to each other, dependent on each
others advice and experience.
<>
Olof Palme joined the government in 1963 as a consulting cabinet
minister. There he found a platform and influence. During the 1960s,
he took up his roll as an internationally oriented politician, a
conscience. Prime Minister Erlander did not have the same international
interest. Thus, Olof Palme filled a vacuum.
Along with many others in the early 1960s, he took part in working
groups that, at the government's request, were to define Swedish help to
the third world. This aid would be built up once the decolonization of
Africa finally began to gain momentum.
But, it was Olof Palme's opinions on the United States' war in Vietnam
that gave him international recognition. He defended the weak and
down-trodden nations, those who were ravaged by foreign super-powers.
<>
"Our reaction is sympathy with the victim, an emotional agitation
against a meaningless suffering. Because, a crime is always a crime,
and terror is always terror, even if it takes place in the name of high
goals and principles," said Olof Palme in his often cited speech to the
brotherhood congress in G�vle on June 30, 1965.
There was power in his words. Power which remained when he later, for
example, called the Franco government "damned murderers" and
characterized the leaders of Czechoslovakia as "dictator's farm
animals".
When America bombed Hanoi during Christmas 1972, Olof Palme compared
this attack with Nazi war crimes. Palme was Prime Minister then and
this caused a strong American reaction. The Swedish Ambassador was
called up to the American State Department and bawled out.
<>
Palme established himself in the 1960s as the obvious successor to Tage
Erlander as the Social Democratic Party chairman. Those were messy
years as his name was associated with both big questions and
trivialities.
When he was Minister of Communications in the summer of 1967, he was in
a rush to get to F�r� where he spent the summer with his family, quietly
and absentmindedly: a social democrat charging his batteries before a
difficult autumn.
He was in a hurry. He wouldn't stop for a military convey. There was a
discussion with the military police. There was never a court case, but
the intermezzo got large headlines.
<>
As Minister of Education, Olof Palme had to deal with the student riots
of 1968, when Swedish students followed their French colleagues by
occupying the Stockholm University Student Union; protesting, in part,
against the government's education reforms. Olof Palme hurried there,
quick to speak out, quick to challenge. He was fearless and informal.
In October 1969, Olof Palme became the new chairman of the Social
Democratic Party. He became Sweden's Prime Minister.
This was the beginning of a new phase. He would unite the Social
Democratic Party. Shape it to his figure.
He succeeded. While Olof Palme has certainly been attacked for being
the arrogant politician who would not listen, he has also been the
Social Democrat's strong leader for more than 16 years. Of course, he
has traveled abroad, often and frequently. But he has not ignored
Swedish opinions. His ability to understand opinions and collect and
guide them has been described as political genius.
Nuclear power is a prime example.
After the difficult accident at Three Mile Island in the USA in March
1979, nuclear power came to dominate Swedish domestic politics. The
Social Democrats were uncertain. Within the party, there was a
meaningful opposition who would prevent further nuclear power
development.
There would be an election that year. The Social Democratic Party
leaders presented the idea of a non-binding referendum -- but first
after the 1979 election. This delayed the sensitive question. The
Social Democrats and Olof Palme also got time to develop a compromise on
nuclear power: that nuclear power would be eventually stopped, but
further expanded in the near-term. A political magic trick.
The internationally oriented politician also found time to travel and
visit small towns in Sweden. He spoke at district party meetings and,
perhaps more than any other party leader, shook hands with party workers
out in the fields.
During an early election campaign in the winter of 1985, he put aside
his duties as Prime Minister for three weeks in order to visit party
district meetings and challenge them to agreement. Clearly, he was the
leader of the Social Democrats.
He lost elections in 1976 and 1979. After non-socialist governments, he
regained the Prime Ministership in 1982.
<>
Much can be added about Olof Palme's international commitment, on his
appeals last year for peace and disarmament.
"This military arms race with all more terrible means of destruction
will bring the inexorable consequence of a new world war whose
destruction may not leave anyone left to describe it," he said in speech
after speech during the election campaigns.
His international contacts led to his becoming a mediator in the
Iran-Iraq war. He was a leader of the Socialist International and wrote
disarmament proposals together with leaders for the Third World. He was
strongly opposed to the Apartheid-goverment in South Africa.
This made him a great and internationally honored politician.
H�kan Bergstr�m.
Originally published in Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, March 2, 1986.
Translated by Martin Minow.
|
| 59.19 | | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Mon Mar 17 1986 09:30 | 75 |
| Associated Press Sun 16-MAR-1986 19:37 Palme
Mourners at Palme Grave, Memorial Service
By KENNETH JAUTZ
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Mourners stood in line by the thousands Sunday
to visit the grave of Olof Palme in a downtown churchyard a block from
where the prime minister was assassinated last month.
The new Swedish leader, Ingvar Carlsson, met with some of the 120
foreign envoys and dignitaries who had come to pay their respects and
to talk to the press and public about their own political troubles.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Rev. Alan
Boesak, two of South Africa's most prominent anti-apartheid activists,
eulogized Palme at a memorial service at the Stockholm Cathedral, and
lamented violence in their own country.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega attended the memorial service, then
went on Swedish radio to repeat that he would be willing to meet with
President Reagan, but not with the leaders of the rebel forces trying
to overthrow his leftist government. "We are ready to talk to the
Contra (rebel) chief and he is Reagan," Ortega said.
U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar placed a bouquet of
roses on Palme's grave, then met with African diplomats. He received a
letter from Angola's foreign minister, Alfonso Domingos van Dunea,
complaining about U.S. policy on South-West Africa, a terrtory
administered by South Africa and also known as Namibia.
While most visitors departed for home Sunday, the Iranian and Iraqi
delegations were not to leave until Monday. But there was no indication
the representatives of the warring countries would meet.
Perez de Cuellar told reporters that Prime Minister Carlsson would not
be replacing Palme as a negotiator in the 5 1/2-year-old Iran-Iraq war,
but declined to speculate on possible candidates for the job. Palme had
made four trips to the Persian Gulf area to try to help end the war.
In his address at the memorial service - attended by Palme's widow and
three sons and King Carl XVI Gustav and his wife, Sylvia - Tutu praised
Palme's campaigning on behalf of detente, development and disarmament.
The Anglican bishop from Johannesburg said the gathering of political
leaders, government chiefs and other dignitaries from so many countries
for Palme's funeral on Saturday was "a remarkable tribute to a truly
remarkable human being."
Then Tutu spoke of his own country, saying, "We are on the brink of a
monumental catastrophe unless we can be helped to pull back by the
international community."
Stockholm police chief Hans Holmer told a news conference prosecutors
would decide Monday whether to release the still unidentified man
arrested last Wednesday in connection with Palme's murder on Feb. 28.
He was shot while walking along a downtown street with his wife,
Lisbet, who suffered a slight wound.
Holmer indicated that the man in custody, identified by his attorney as
a Swedish anti-communist, would be released. "We would have to have
stronger reasons to arraign this man," Holmer said.
In downtown Stockholm, thousands of Swedes stood in line, block after
block, waiting in the cold wind to enter the cemetery at Adolf Fredriks
Church, and pass by Palme's grave.
Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, Palme's friend, deputy and successor,
began the more than 40 planned meetings he has scheduled with foreign
guests.
A torchlight march of an estimated 25,000 Swedes wound through the
southern city of Malm� on Friday night to honor Palme, the Swedish news
agency said.
|
| 59.20 | Memorial Service at Harvard University | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Mon Mar 17 1986 09:35 | 37 |
| Associated Press Mon 17-MAR-1986 07:29 Palme-Harvard
Harvard Service for Palme Attracts 300
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was described
as a "symbol of decency in human affairs" by mourners who gathered at a
memorial service at Harvard University's Memorial Church.
About 300 people, many from the university community and consular
corps, gathered for the Saturday service in memory of the 59-year-old
Social Democrat who was shot and killed Feb. 28 by an unidentified
gunman.
Victor Wisskopf, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and
personal friend of Palme's, told the gathering at Harvrd that his
friend had been a "hope for peace on earth" and "a symbol of decency in
human affairs."
He praised Palme's vision of a unified Europe, his chairmanship of the
Palme Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, and quoted from
him: "I rather feel that the rhetoric of statesmen should be tempered
by the down-to-earth realism of ordinary people who have come to
understand what nuclear war would mean, and demand practical action to
prevent it."
Sissela Bok, a Swedish-born ethicist whose parents Gunnar and Alva
Myrdal were Swedish Nobel Prize-winners, said she believed people were
most impressed by Palme's "sense of utter self-evidence with which he
dedicated himself to public service."
She called him an "internationalist statesman in the best sense of the
word: not a bloodless bureaucrat for whom all nations blur in a welter
of statistics; nor a head of state who sees the world primarily as a
stage for power plays to enhance national goals; but one of the still
quite rare leaders who understands the intimate connection between the
welfare and survival of his own nation and that of all others."
|
| 59.21 | | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Tue Mar 18 1986 11:21 | 97 |
| Associated Press Tue 18-MAR-1986 09:28 Palme
Newspaper Says Suspect Was Member of Right-Wing Group
By DICK SODERLAND
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A prosecutor said a Swede now in custody is a
prime suspect in the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, and
news reports said the man once belonged to a right-wing group that had
called Palme a "madman."
Chief prosecutor K.G. Svensson asked the Stockholm magistrate's court
Monday for permission to hold the suspect for further investigation.
"As a result of investigations carried out to date, probable reasons
have emerged in the view of the prosecutor to implicate the man of
complicity in the murder as perpetrator," a statement from Svensson's
office said.
"It is most important that he be detained until the suspicions have
been further investigated," said Svensson in his request, which the
court is to consider Thursday.
In Swedish legal parlance, the word "perpetrator" could mean either the
gunman or an accomplice actively involved in the slaying. Svensson's
statement did not clarify his use of the word, and officials refused to
elaborate.
The prosecutor said the suspect's clothing will be analyzed by experts
in Wiesbaden, West Germany, and police indicated the analysis for
possible gunpowder stains could yield more evidence soon.
The mass-circulation daily Expressen today reported that Palme's wife,
Lisbet, failed to identify the suspect in a line-up at police
headquarters on Monday. A police spokesman declined to comment on the
report.
The suspect, who has not been identified by officials or in the Swedish
news media in accordance with Swedish law, was arrested last Wednesday
and could be held for only five days unless charges were filed or a
special court order was requested to hold him further. Prosecutors
chose the latter course.
The American television network ABC identified the suspect as Victor
Gunnarsson. The Times of London also identified him as Victor
Gunnarsson, and gave his age as 32. The suspect's lawyers have said he
is strongly anti-communist, and that he is innocent.
According to the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, in 1984 the
suspect was registered as a member of the European Workers Party, known
by its Swedish initials EAP, which the paper described as a fascist
organization.
The paper said it found the suspect's name on a list of 1,800 party
members, registered at the Swedish Tax Revenue Department before 1984
parliamentary elections. Parties must register at least 1,500
signatures to participate in the elections. The party has existed in
Sweden since the early 70s. Party defectors have told of brain-washing
and harassment.
Gunnar Falk, an attorney for the suspect, said earlier that the only
organization his client belonged to was a free-church sect. Falk also
said he was not suprised by the prosecutor's accusation.
The Stockholm afternoon newspaper Aftonbladet quoted a woman it
identified as the suspect's ex-wife as saying her former husband was
"violent, strange and fanatic," and hated Palme.
The 34-year-old woman, interviewed in Los Angeles, was quoted as saying
that because of Palme, a socialist, her former husband believed "Sweden
would be sold out to the Russians within two years." She did not want
to be identified or provide her address, the newspaper said.
Aftonbladet today published several pictures showing what it said was
the suspect at a 1976 Palme election rally waving a placard that
grotesquely caricatured the prime minister. The man's face was covered
by the paper to prevent identification.
The newspaper also published an interview with a man said to be the
suspect's father, who was quoted as saying "terrorists or hired kilers
may have used him."
Svensson said in a statement to TT that the suspect "had been in the
immediate vicinity of the slaying" 10 minutes after it occurred "and
had been very eager to get a lift from the area, according to a witness
who was driving a car."
Police chief Hans Holmer said the man turned up at a movie theater near
the site of the slaying "long after the show had begun. It all gives
the impression he was fleeing."
A witness told investigators the suspect said in a telephone
conversation early last month that "Palme was on the death list" and
"blood will flow on the streets of Stockholm," Svensson said. Holmer
said the man "in many contexts has made himself known for diatribes
against Palme."
|
| 59.22 | Peace prize posthumously awarded | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Tue Sep 30 1986 10:06 | 16 |
| Associated Press Mon 29-SEP-1986 17:53 Palme
Slain Swedish Prime Minister Wins Einstein Peace Prize
WASHINGTON (AP) - The late Prime Minister Olaf Palme of Sweden won the
Albert Einstein Peace Prize this year for "wide-ranging efforts on
behalf of peace," Norman Cousins, head of the selection board, said
Monday. "As a negotiator, mediator and initiator, he had no equal,"
Cousins said in a statement distributed by the foundation which
presents the $50,000 prize annually.
Former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt was the winner last year,
and Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau won in 1984.
Palme was assassinated earlier this year in Stockholm. His widow,
Lisabeth, will accept the award at a ceremony in Washington Oct. 29.
|
| 59.23 | Documentary planned | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Mon Nov 17 1986 08:45 | 17 |
| Associated Press Sun 16-NOV-1986 13:33 BRF--Sweden-Palme
Swedish TV-Film Planned on Palme Murder
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Swedish television plans to produce a drama
documentary, possibly in cooperation with the British Broadcasting
Corp., on the unsolved assassination of Olof Palme, a Swedish newspaper
reported Sunday. The production is due to be shown on Swedish
television's Channel 1 around Feb. 28, one year after Palme, then prime
minister, was shot in the back when walking home unguarded from a
downtown movie theater in Stockholm.
Aftonbladet said Sunday that the 50-minute program, with a budget of
$140,000, might be produced in two versions, one Swedish and one
English in cooperation with BBC. "It will be a drama documentary
depicting the 24 hours immediately after Palme was shot," the newspaper
quoted Jan Bergqvist, the film's director, as saying.
|
| 59.24 | Controversial TV show | TLE::SAVAGE | Neil, @Spit Brook | Fri Feb 13 1987 16:28 | 19 |
| Associated Press Fri 13-FEB-1987 14:22 BRF--US-Sweden
U.S. Voices Concern To Swedish TV Station Over Soviet Documentary
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has expressed concern to a Swedish
television station over its plans to broadcast a Soviet documentary
alleging that the U.S. government was responsible for the murder of
Prime Minister Olof Palme, the State Department said Friday.
Deputy spokeswoman Phyllis Oakley said the U.S. Embassy press counselor
in Stockholm, John Thompson, told the director of the station planning
to broadcast the film that the allegations of U.S. culpability are
"malicious and outrageous."
The station, which is independent, plans to show the film on the Feb.
28 anniversary of Palme's murder on a Stockholm street. The crime
remains unsolved.
Ms. Oakley said Thompson made no request that the film not be shown.
|
| 59.25 | Independent TV station??? | STKTSC::LITBY | Per-Olof Litby, CSC Stockholm/Sweden | Sat Feb 14 1987 06:52 | 10 |
|
> The station, which is independent, plans to show the film on the Feb.
> 28 anniversary of Palme's murder on a Stockholm street. The crime
> remains unsolved.
Independent TV station? Here? Independent of WHAT?
The film will be shown on Swedish state-run TV.
/POL
|
| 59.26 | not quite state run | LATEXS::MINOW | That's your opinion, we welcome ours. | Mon Feb 16 1987 11:59 | 18 |
| > Independent TV station? Here? Independent of WHAT?
> The film will be shown on Swedish state-run TV.
Strictly speaking, Sveriges Radio *is* independent, modelled on the BBC.
In reality, however, the two tv networks have been described as
"the world's first stereo tv, with two left channels."
In the mid 1970's, when Dec did the election night computer coverage,
the programmer's did a trial run for the producers. They made up data
using the latest newspaper poll -- the first to show a loss for the
Socialists. The tv people were less than objective about the results
as they were being displayed. (The poll turned out to be quite accurate,
as it turned out.)
M.
|
| 59.27 | Murderer arrested?????? | MYVAX::MICRO_A | | Thu Dec 15 1988 10:36 | 7 |
| Someone told me they arrested the murderer yesterday. Details anyone?
Magnus
|
| 59.28 | From last night's news | BOLT::MINOW | Repent! Godot is coming soon! Repent! | Thu Dec 15 1988 11:56 | 14 |
| They arrested a *suspect*, described in a radio report as a 41-year old
man with a criminal record and a history of psychological problems.
The prosecutor has a week (or two) to make a formal charge.
The radio report said that there were always two conflicting theories,
one that it was a political assassination, the other that it was the
work of "a lone gunman."
It should also be noted that, although Sweden has a very strict freedom
of the press law, the press almost never reports the name of a suspect until
after conviction (if then). The only exception I recall is when the name has
been publicized outside of Sweden.
Martin.
|
| 59.29 | Some more facts! | STKSMA::AHLGREN | My God, It's full of stars!! | Fri Dec 16 1988 08:41 | 37 |
| The man is 41 years old with a HEAVY Criminal Record. He has a history
of violent crimes including at least one murder.
The man is now arrested and "reasonable suspected to be the Killer"
according to the prosecutor. The Police has been very restrictive
with information this time. Maybe because they have some substance
this time. This is first arrest in the investigation since March
1986 when the police arrested the '33-year old man' as he has been
called in the Swedish Press.
Here are some facts :
* The man has admitted that he was on 'Sveav�gen' at the time of
the murder (Street where OP was killed).
* He has changed lifestyle after the murder. Before the murder he
was the type of person that bragged about his crimes, after the
murder he has kept a 'low profile'.
* Witnesses says that he is the 'Grand-mannen'. This is the person
that was seen following OP and his wife from the cinema.
* It's said that he ressembles the 'Phantom-picture' of the murderer
that was produced after the murder.
It isn't a sudden arrest that the police have done. They have been
working undercover for at least three months in the (Alcoholic)
Gang where the 41 year old used to hang around.
If the 'facts' presented in the papers are true, then it's very
likely that the police has catched the killer. Then the second theory
about the murder has been proved correct. The Murder was done by
a single killer...
Paul.
|
| 59.30 | Identified! | STKSMA::AHLGREN | My God, It's full of stars!! | Wed Dec 21 1988 02:51 | 6 |
| Lisbeth Palme (wife of OP) is said to have identified the man as
the man she saw on the street at the murder. The Prosecuters has
a problem though. They can't find out where the man (if it was him)
got the weapon, which is essential for the trial.
Paul.
|
| 59.31 | Krister Pettersson | KIPPIS::SIRO | A horse with no name | Sun Jan 01 1989 10:34 | 6 |
| RE: .28
Maybe you know it already; anyway his name was told in finnish
papers some two weeks ago.
risto
|
| 59.32 | Killer hesitated, could have been caught | TLE::SAVAGE | | Mon Apr 11 1994 13:15 | 33 |
| From: [email protected] (AP)
Newsgroups: clari.world.europe.western
Subject: Witness: Swede Assassin Waited
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 94 11:40:07 PDT
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Prime Minister Olof Palme's murderer
could have been caught within minutes if police had answered an
emergency phone call, a witness told Swedish radio Sunday.
The witness, Leif Ljungqvist, broke his silence about his
fruitless attempts to reach police that February night in 1986,
when Palme was assassinated after leaving a theater in central
Stockholm.
Ljungqivst said he saw Palme as the prime minister lay dying.
Next to his bleeding body, Palme's wife, Lisbeth, was on her knees.
Ljungqivst said the killer watched nearby and made no attempt to
run away.
Ljungqvist grabbed his cellular phone and dialed Sweden's
emergency number.
"Murder on Sveavagen," he said.
"Talk to the police," the operator replied, and transferred
his call.
But no officer answered, Ljungqvist said. After about another
minute and a half, Ljungqvist hung up. By that time, the killer had
started running away.
Police have investigated the slaying for eight years, but
without success. Ljungqvist contends the murderer could have been
caught within minutes had the police answered his call.
The Stockholm police force has been criticized severely by media
and private investigators for not performing better on the night of
the murder. Palme was assassinated on one of the city's busiest
streets on a Saturday night, when police are normally on alert.
The Swedish government has said it will name a commission to
study the police investigation.
|
| 59.33 | It's been almost 10 years | TLE::SAVAGE | | Thu Feb 01 1996 10:34 | 22 |
| From: [email protected] (Jens Dahlin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Who killed Olaf Palme?
Date: 31 Jan 1996 22:16:36 GMT
Organization: -
Christer Petterson, a small time criminal, was found guilty in the
"L�nsr�tten" (A court that is working in a specified area - as in a
state in US) and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment but the "Svea
Hovr�tt" (Meaning the Supreme Court of Sweden) found him not guilty
and freed him, this means that Christer cannot be sentenced again
unless the murder weapon is found.
Christer Petterson has BTW gotten a cocktail named after him, Vodka and
Baileys Chocolate Liqeur - disgustning. In less than a month it�s
exactly 10 years since Palme was shot.
The opinion here in Sweden is, I'm quite sure of, that the murderer
will never get caught, it's ten years ago, and all trails are old.
Jens Dahlin <[email protected]>
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