Olof Palme

Shot on 28 February 1986 on a Stockholm street by an unknown gunman; the murder of the former prime minister walking home from a cinema became Europe most notorious unsolved case.

Overview

Palme, the Social Democratic prime minister of Sweden and international voice of the nonaligned, disarmament, and anti-apartheid causes, had left office and been reelected; walking home from a cinema with his wife without bodyguards, as the Swedish democracy allowed, he was shot at point-blank range on the Sveavagen. The investigation destroyed one verdict, the conviction of Christer Pettersson in 1988 overturned on appeal the next year, and pursued the Kurdish PKK, Chilean, South African, and Yugoslav leads without result. In 2020 the prosecutors closed the case naming Stig Engstrom, a graphic designer with training, grievance, and presence at the scene, who had killed himself in 2000; the conclusion remains debated by police veterans. The murder ended Swedish innocence about violence at home and disciplined security practice in Scandinavia.