Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson left 15 boxes of documents in Olof Palme case for police. But did he name the right man?
As a campaigning leftwing journalist who penned novels starring a campaigning leftwing journalist, Stieg Larsson's career always blurred fact and fiction to some extent. But now it has emerged that the late bestselling thriller writer was probably also the man who tipped off Swedish police about a suspect in the country's most infamous murder.
Larsson, who died aged 50 in 2004, before his Millennium trilogy of novels had even been published, let alone sold tens of millions of copies and been turned into successful films, left behind 15 boxes of files connected to the killing of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister gunned down as he walked home from a cinema with his wife in February 1986.
According to a Swedish newspaper which has been granted access to the papers by Larsson's former partner, Eva Gabrielsson, he identified a Swedish ex-military officer allegedly connected to South Africa's security services as having organised the murder. Palme was a vehement critic of the apartheid government and there has long been speculation about a South African connection.
Gabrielsson told Svenska Dagbladet that she and Larsson spent much of the year after Palme's murder looking into who might be to blame, focusing on the far-right groups Larsson had tracked for years. He was interviewed by Swedish police and passed them the name of Bertil Wedin, who moved to northern Cyprus shortly before Palme's death and has remained there since.
"The name was written with his typewriter. It is clear it was Stieg who gave this to the Palme investigation," Gabrielsson said. Wedin was never fully interviewed about the affair by police, only talking to detectives once, briefly, on the phone.
Larsson, who died aged 50 in 2004, before his Millennium trilogy of novels had even been published, let alone sold tens of millions of copies and been turned into successful films, left behind 15 boxes of files connected to the killing of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister gunned down as he walked home from a cinema with his wife in February 1986.
According to a Swedish newspaper which has been granted access to the papers by Larsson's former partner, Eva Gabrielsson, he identified a Swedish ex-military officer allegedly connected to South Africa's security services as having organised the murder. Palme was a vehement critic of the apartheid government and there has long been speculation about a South African connection.
Gabrielsson told Svenska Dagbladet that she and Larsson spent much of the year after Palme's murder looking into who might be to blame, focusing on the far-right groups Larsson had tracked for years. He was interviewed by Swedish police and passed them the name of Bertil Wedin, who moved to northern Cyprus shortly before Palme's death and has remained there since.
"The name was written with his typewriter. It is clear it was Stieg who gave this to the Palme investigation," Gabrielsson said. Wedin was never fully interviewed about the affair by police, only talking to detectives once, briefly, on the phone.
Stieg Larsson gave police 15 boxes of documents supporting his claim about South African security services, says Svenska Dagbladet. Photograph: Per Jarl/Expo/Scanpix/PA
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