Hope of solving Palme’s murder

On a bitterly cold February night 34 years ago, Sweden’s prime minister, Olof Palme, was shot in the back with a .357 calibre revolver while walking home with his wife after an evening at the cinema.

His murder in 1986 changed Sweden for ever: shattering the illusion of safety in this quiet country. Yet the killer was never found. Since that day, the question of who killed Palme – a debonair aristocrat devoted to Social Democratic ideals – has been a national trauma.

Now an end may be in sight. Sweden’s prosecution authority announced it would present its conclusions on the Palme investigation before July 1. Within weeks, the case could be abandoned officially, or proceedings started against a suspect.

‘‘I am positive that we’ll be able to present what happened with the murder and who is responsible for it,’’ Krister Petersson, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told Swedish TV in February this year.

If the case is solved, it will provide closure for a nation that was deeply shaken by Palme’s murder. At least 130 people have confessed to the crime, 10,000 have been questioned by police and an untold number of books, blogs and conspiracy theories have been published by everyone from distinguished experts to cranks. Kurdish militant group the PKK, Chilean fascists and Yugoslav security forces have been accused of orchestrating his murder.

The crime author Stieg Larsson, who investigated the killing, suggested that it was operatives from the South African apartheid regime, which Palme fiercely opposed, helped by farRight Swedish extremists.

Jan Stocklassa, author of The Man Who Played with Fire, continued the research after Larsson’s death in 2004. ‘‘I think [the announcement] means they do have something new that noone knows about in Sweden except for police and prosecutors,’’ he said. ‘‘It’ll be some kind of evidence. Maybe documents, a witness statement or something very clear.’’

The hunt for Palme’s killer has been complicated by the extraordinarily long list of enemies that he had acquired during his decades in the public eye. While feted internationally, he was despised by large parts of Sweden’s Right wing, from mainstream conservatives to extremists. They accused him variously of being a class traitor and of cosying up to the Soviet Union and the Viet Cong. Even within the Centre and the Left, many branded him patronising and cynical, an aristocrat talking down to ordinary people.

‘‘Palme was a very controversial politician and a lot of Swedes had enough of him. But he was the leader of the Social Democrats and had a strong position,’’ said Jan Bondeson, who wrote Blood on the Snow: The Killing of Olof Palme. ‘‘He spoke at least seven languages and stood out like a red carnation among the dullards of his own party.’’

His death is Sweden’s most enduring mystery. ‘‘It’s a national trauma without any resolution. It’s as if Margaret Thatcher had been shot at Piccadilly Circus and the murder had never been found,’’ Bondeson said. – Sunday Times