A smorgasbord of suspects
PLANNING documents for Operation Slingervel indicate that it was to coincide with the anti-apartheid gathering in Stockholm, but the assembly took place without incident.
In all likelihood, security was simply too tight, but whatever the reason, Slingervel’s strategic planners decided in the end that it would be unwise to act during the gathering. Whatever mileage could have been gained from the maximum international media coverage was outweighed by the risk. The intention all along was to blame other elements, so the operators involved could not be apprehended or unmasked under any circumstances.
Once Olof Palme had been officially branded an enemy of the state by the SSC, South Africa’s agents focused their full attention on him.
Key figures within Longreach had long since established themselves in the Swedish capital and made contact with the Uppsala Group to ensure support from the country’s underground networks, but the man who was temporarily seconded for Slingervel was deliberately held back, slipping into Sweden at the last possible moment.
On the night of 23 February 1986, he flew from Jan Smuts Airport to Heathrow and spent two nights at the Grosvenor Hotel in Hyde Park, London. On the morning of 26 February, he took a ferry to Amsterdam, from where he made his way to Denmark, spending the night in a guesthouse.
The following day he travelled to Sweden, checking in at the Wellington Hotel in Stockholm. The agent almost certainly made contact soon after arrival with the Slingervel advance team and their Swedish support team for a thorough planning and intelligence briefing.
Olof Palme was an easy-going person who trusted his fellow citizens implicitly. It was not at all unusual to see him strolling around the city streets, not a bodyguard in sight. He and his family also took regular breaks at their summer house on the island of Gotland without any security personnel.
Sweden never really had to deal with violent crime. A peaceful country with a liberal government, its police force and detectives had little experience of investigating serious crime. This would cost them dearly in years to come.
In Scandinavian terms, the night of 28 February was a beautiful, clear night without snow, although it was bitterly cold and the temperature was -17°C.
As usual, Olof gave his bodyguards the night off when he and his wife, Lisbeth, decided to spend the evening at the cinema. Unlike the political leaders of beleaguered countries, the premier and his wife felt totally comfortable and safe sharing the theatre with ordinary citizens and without any preferential treatment.
It was a simple matter for surveillance teams in the heart of Stockholm to note that the Palmes had gone to the movies. This would give an operational team a good two hours to set up and carry out an assassination. They would have to take into account whether Olof and Lisbeth would turn left or right when they left the theatre. There was also the possibility that the couple would go for a late-evening stroll before heading home. A stopper group would have to be on standby. In reality, this meant that there could be two assassins, to make sure that Palme was hit, no matter what direction he took.
The premier and his wife were cheerfully discussing the film they had just seen when they left the theatre in Sveavägen. Things moved quickly. A man suddenly walked right up to them and fired two shots. Olof was hit in the back and fell to the pavement. Amid the confusion and deafening sound of gunshots, Lisbeth felt a burning sensation on her back, but her sole concern was for her husband, lying on the ground.
Even as bystanders started screaming and jostling, she saw the gunman flee the scene and disappear. Two young women who had been sitting in a car nearby came running and tried to help the wounded prime minister. At the time, they probably didn’t even realise whose life they were trying to save.
A cab driver gave the alarm and summoned the police on his car radio. Olof Palme, aged fifty-nine, was rushed to hospital, but declared dead on arrival. It was later determined that the shot intended for Lisbeth had been stopped by her clothing and the bullet had merely grazed her back.
Operation Slingervel’s killer left the country immediately and spent the following night in a guest house in Amsterdam before taking a ferry back to England. On the night of 2 March he slept at the Yacht Hostel in London, and flew back to South Africa the next day.
On 18 March he submitted his expense claim for the trip to Europe to Longreach. The total amount of $1 145.25 was authorised on Craig Williamson’s behalf by another Longreach operator, Riaan Stander. It was audited and approved by the defence force’s financial staff on 22 July.
In Stockholm, the shit hit the fan with a vengeance as the inept Swedish police began investigating the murder. They made one mistake after another. It was apparent that the Swedes were bumbling and stumbling at every turn. They were wholly unprepared for this kind of crap. It had never occurred to them that this sort of thing could happen in their country. On the night of the murder, the police had found no shell casings at the scene.
The bullet that was supposedly meant for Lisbeth Palme was picked up nearby on 1 March. The so-called fatal bullet was found by a woman only on 2 March – four days after the shooting – and handed over to the police. The fact that a thorough search had been conducted on the night of Palme’s murder but that no shells had been found places a huge question mark over the efficiency of the police.
Alternatively, there were no bullets to recover that night and they were planted later to sow deliberate confusion and draw attention away from the actual conspirators. No murder weapon was ever found.
Soon after the assassination, Viktor Gunnarsson, a thirty-three-year-old Swedish national, was arrested in connection with the incident. He was described as a fanatical anti-communist, deeply religious, highly intelligent, multilingual and a compulsive liar, who had claimed at one point to have fought with American forces in Vietnam.
Gunnarsson, also known as Vic Gunnison, was taken into custody twice by the Swedish police. The investigating officer, Inspector Börje Wingren, was convinced that he was the killer, but due to bungling at higher levels within the police, he was released and soon left the country.
Gunnarsson was positively identified as having been in the vicinity of the murder and, according to eyewitnesses, he was the man who had fled the scene. He was murdered in North Carolina in the USA in 1994, not long after admitting, in Inspector Wingren’s book, He Killed Olof Palme, that he was the assassin. American police said he was either the target of a hit or the victim of a crime of passion.
Three years after Palme died, Christer Petterson, a well-known drug addict and alcoholic, was arrested. Lisbeth Palme was among those who identified him as her husband’s murderer. He was convicted in the lower courts in 1989, but later that year acquitted on appeal on the grounds of procedural errors and conflicting testimony. He had no alibi for the night of the murder, and many people continued to believe in his guilt.
The Swedish police had no idea how to conduct proper detective work, or forensic or ballistic examinations in the case. In desperation, the assistance of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the West German Bundeskriminalistik was called in.
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission report on the Palme murder stated that the Swedish police had explored several avenues, including a conspiracy by right-wing Swedish police officers, a Kurdish terrorist group and the possibility that the murder was committed by an individual with a personal grudge against Palme.
According to journalist and researcher Sven Anér, Per Wastberg, a journalist who specialised in African affairs, told the police five days after the assassination that there was a South African connection, but the police didn’t even bother making a note of the information.
In its final report, the TRC concluded that the police had no interest in pursuing the South African link. ‘Sven Anér is convinced that certain Swedish police officers played a direct role in Palme’s murder. Others do not believe this, but no one discounts the possibility of some form of indirect involvement.’
A few days after the murder, the British secret service, MI6, received a mysterious tip-off: the man who had killed Olof Palme was acting on the orders of the South African security police. Members of the hit squads Koevoet or COIN were behind the shooting.
The MI6 informant named Craig Williamson as the actual brain behind the assassination, and claimed he was helped by members of the Swedish police.
Around the same time, Karl-Gunnar Back, general secretary of the Swedish civil defence committee, was told by a friend in England that MI6 had information about the murder being the work of the South African security forces. The allegation that at least one Swedish police official was involved was reiterated.
Back placed the information on tape and gave it to SÄPO, the Swedish security police in Uppsala. Months passed without him hearing from them, but in the late summer of 1986, they finally contacted him. SÄPO claimed that they had followed up his leads but that nothing had come of them.
Back was stunned, since no one from SÄPO had even bothered to interview him, or find out who his informant was. It later emerged that the detectives investigating the Palme murder were not even made aware of Back’s tape. SÄPO eventually claimed, in response to inquiries, that it had no idea what had become of the tape.
The Swedes had another lead from an informant – a notorious Swedish gangster – about the South African connection. He, too, alleged that Swedish policemen had been involved with South African agents in the murder plot. He said some of the policemen were members of the International Police Association (IPA), that they had a training camp at Rydsfjord, had visited South Africa on various occasions and had made contact with members of the security police.
The informant also claimed that the police and the IPA had a secret hideout and arms cache at 32 Wallington in Stockholm. This was only a few blocks from where Palme was shot. He said the policemen were neo-Nazis, carried firearms when they were off duty and were in regular contact with South African agents in Stockholm.
An internal probe was conducted into the right-wing activities of Swedish policemen who visited South Africa regularly during the mid-1980s. It was of particular significance that Normalm, where these policemen were stationed, was adjacent to the Birger Jarl Hotel, where Williamson customarily stayed when in Stockholm.
Throughout the 1980s, policemen from this district had a reputation for brutality and became known as ‘the baseball league’. They were actively involved in right-wing political activity, and some of them quit the police to set up private security companies that became involved in the illegal arms trade.
Palme was slain within this police precinct, but no member of the force saw anything and they were slow to respond to the emergency call after the shooting.
While none of this amounts to more than conspiracy theory, the fact remains that the Swedish police stuffed up the Palme murder investigation completely. One might even be forgiven for thinking that they didn’t want to solve the case, given the half-hearted efforts that were made over several years.
In 1996, Colonel Eugene de Kock, convicted former commander of the Vlakplaas hit squads, caused a sensation when, during his trial in the Pretoria Supreme Court, he alleged that Anthony (Ant) White had shot Palme. Ant was a founder member of Longreach, and he had been accused of many things in his life – from the smuggling of rhino horn and ivory to plans to blow up the stage during an address by former Lesotho premier, Chief Minister Leabua Jonathan – but, as it turned out, the Palme murder could not be pinned on him.
De Kock’s claims spread like wildfire, and within forty-eight hours it seemed as if the entire Swedish media pack had descended on South Africa to follow up this fresh information. Because virtually the entire De Kock trial was conducted in Afrikaans, the Swedish journalists had to rely on translators and Afrikaans-speaking colleagues to follow the proceedings. The hope was that De Kock would expand on his claims, but he never did. He just dropped his bombshell and ignored the fallout that ensued.
For days, South African and European newspapers were filled with reports that dragged the Palme story out of the grave, while countless ‘talking heads’ popped up on television to discuss, weigh and evaluate this ‘new’ information.
A team of Swedish detectives, led by Superintendent Hans Olvebro, also travelled to South Africa and interviewed both Williamson and De Kock about the fresh allegations.
And then the media circus moved on and the excitement died down yet again. The Swedish authorities were none the wiser about who had killed their premier, and everyone De Kock had named vehemently denied involvement – which was only to be expected.
Ant White decided that his ‘good’ name had been besmirched once too often and sued two of Sweden’s biggest newspapers, Aftonbladet and Expressen, for libel. Both publications won their cases.
Shortly after the Swedish court had ruled in favour of the newspapers, a member of the Palme investigating team visited South Africa in February 2000 to consult the National Prosecuting Authority. He also spoke to former senior members of the Civil Cooperation Bureau.
The visit was kept under wraps, but a spokesman for the Swedish embassy in South Africa confirmed that two detectives had interviewed various South African officials and ‘other people’. He declined to divulge any details, but said that their visit was in connection with the ongoing investigation into Palme’s murder.
They, too, went home empty-handed, since there had been no new developments or clues in the case.
Meanwhile, also in 2000, Swedish businessman Kent Ajland contacted General Tai Minnaar and Ponnie van Vuuren, a former naval officer who had worked for the Directorate Covert Collection (DCC). Ajland and a consortium of Swedish businessmen put up the funds for Minnaar and Van Vuuren to review the way in which the murder probe had been carried out. The former head of the Swedish national criminal investigation unit, Tommy Lindström, also took part in this exercise.
General Tai, a thoroughly colourful character, had worked for the American CIA during the early 1960s and spent time in Cuba as an underground agent against Fidel Castro’s regime. Not long after the Palme probe, which was known as Operation Deep Search, he died under suspicious circumstances at his home in Erasmuskloof, Pretoria. Numerous questions about his death remain unanswered, chief among them why he was cremated before an autopsy could be carried out.
Tai always referred to himself as the ‘Old Man’, and this was the name he used in classified documents as well. When he died, he was engaged in a highly sensitive CIA operation to expose a South African connection to an international black market in anthrax. South African authorities were aware of this probe, and police commissioner Jackie Selebi and his intelligence chief, Ray Lala, had been drawn into certain discussions, yet the police showed no interest in investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding Minnaar’s death.
For the South African government, the whole affair was extremely sensitive, coming at a time of universal paranoia as al-Qaeda held the world hostage with the fear of anthrax attacks. The official approach seemed to be that if the situation was simply ignored, it would somehow go away. Selebi and Lala did their best to bury the crisis under their denials and silence, but unanswered questions understandably continued to hover over their heads like an albatross.
Documents show that Operation Deep Search was hampered as a result of the change of government in South Africa in 1994. Fearful that the TRC would turn into a witch-hunt, security force documents were shredded in a frenzied purge of official records. Individuals who stashed documents as a form of personal insurance held their tongues and were not prepared to make them available, lest their identities be revealed.
‘The passage of fourteen years, several unsuccessful investigations in both Sweden and in South Africa, as well as the political changes in South Africa since 1994 have made this investigation extremely difficult,’ according to the introduction to the Operation Deep Search report. The task was not made easier by the fact that people like De Kock and the verbose Dirk Coetzee claimed to have information about the assassination. This gave rise to an orchestrated effort to expunge and destroy every possible document and shred of evidence linked to the incident. Those who had allowed themselves to believe that the ghost of Olof Palme had been buried once and for all shat themselves when they realised that old bones were being dusted off and placed on display once more.
‘The last official investigation in 1994 led to available proof being destroyed by certain individuals who were still linked to the South African intelligence community.’
General Tai and Ponnie approached their investigation strategically, fully aware that they would first have to establish a motive for the assassination, and then examine the profiles of South Africans who might have been selected by the intelligence community to carry out an assassination of this nature.
Olof Palme’s killer would have had to meet the following criteria:
• Suitable training.
• Previous experience of similar assassinations.
• The right psychological make-up.
• Physical presence in the area at the right date and time.
• Proficiency with a .357 Magnum, the murder weapon.
Operation Deep Search successfully carried out an electronic probe into intelligence reports submitted to the State Security Council. These showed that Palme had been singled out as a primary individual determined to isolate South Africa at all levels of international cooperation. Palme was also actively working for the imposition of an oil embargo against South Africa, and international sanctions that would ban all contact with the country.
‘Mr Palme was regarded as a major enemy of South Africa, who had to be neutralised,’ according to the report. ‘It is not possible to access the intelligence reports without compromising sympathetic contacts who are in place. The minutes of SSC meetings could not be obtained, but it is known that copies thereof are in the possession of certain journalists.’
According to Operation Deep Search, less than a handful of South Africans would have been qualified to kill Palme. The only people who could have been used for so-called ‘wet/black’ operations, according to General Tai and Ponnie, were:
PHIL FREEMAN
• A former British Commando. He was also a member of the erstwhile Bureau for State Security and later of National Intelligence.
• He was not deployed in Europe when Palme was killed and later formed part of the South African team investigating the assassination.
• His weapon of choice for executions was a .22 long-barrelled Colt.
• Even after retiring, he continued to work as an agent, on contract, until his death in 2000.
ROY DARYL ALLEN
• He was trained by Freeman and they became close friends. Worked for BOSS until he moved to Military Intelligence in 1982/83.
• Seconded to Longreach, and operated under deep cover in Europe for a brief period.
• Could be placed in Stockholm on the night of 28 February 1986 with Craig Williamson.
• On returning from Europe, Allen was transferred to Angola/Namibia, where he is known to have operated in the Oshakati area.
• Questioned by South African investigators in 1996 about the Palme assassination. Emigrated to Australia immediately afterwards.
• His favourite weapon was a .357 Magnum Desert Eagle automatic.
ANTHONY ‘ANT’ WHITE
• Former member of the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts. Also involved in a private security company.
• Joined Longreach and participated in various sensitive operations, including the transport of weapons for the proposed Lesotho operation.
• Was arrested and convicted of illegal possession of arms. Jailed for a time until he was recruited by the CCB and freed. Left South Africa in 1994 and settled permanently in Mozambique.
• Was carrying out a local operation in South Africa when Palme was murdered.
EUGENE DE KOCK
• Security police officer in command of Vlakplaas, which was widely used by the SSC for ‘wet/black’ ops within the borders of South Africa and in neighbouring states, but never abroad.
• Fitted the psychological profile, but was never trained as a professional assassin.
According to the Operation Deep Search documents, the complicity of Rear Admiral Willem du Plessis, General Neels van Tonder and Brigadier Tolletjie Botha in the operation to murder Palme was traced with the help of electronic records, but the majority of references had been carefully altered or deleted altogether. ‘It is not possible to make copies of the records available, as this would expose the personnel involved.’
General Tai and Ponnie called in the help of one of South Africa’s top ballistics experts, Wollie Wolmarans, to analyse anew the forensic tests carried out at the murder scene and on the bullets by the FBI and the Bundeskriminalistik.
Wollie had twenty-seven years of experience as an independent forensic expert, and during his career had worked with various international forensic laboratories. In 2000 he assisted the UN as a ballistics expert during the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in Kosovo.
In his analysis of the American and German experts’ findings, Wollie questioned the likelihood that both shots – the one that killed Palme and the one that barely touched his wife – came from the same weapon. ‘Is it a practical possibility that the shots could be fired from the same handgun in such rapid succession? Not even the finest internationally recognised laboratory in the world, namely the FBI laboratory, can prove that the shots were fired by the same weapon,’ according to his report.
He also questioned whether the shell casings found a few days afterwards in the vicinity of the murder by civilians were, in fact, those fired by the assassin. ‘It is difficult to accept that, after the murder scene had been cordoned off, bullet Q3 (the one that allegedly killed Palme) was recovered only four days later by a civilian, barely 20 metres from where Palme was shot, and after midnight, at that.
‘The fact that bullet Q2 (Lisbeth Palme’s bullet) was found so close to the crime scene, with no serious signs of damage, makes no sense at all and, once again, it was picked up by a civilian,’ said Wollie in his report.
The minimal damage to Palme’s fatal bullet also struck him as strangely suspicious. It is a matter of record that the prime minister was shot at close range, and the bullet, which shattered his fifth spinal vertebra as well as his sternum, ought to have mushroomed on impact.
‘A bullet travelling at about 1 300 feet per second, hitting and shattering bone twice and causing a far larger exit than entry wound, would have had to show serious signs of deformation and mutilation.’
Wollie found conclusively that the two bullets, Q2 and Q3, could not have been fired on the night that Palme was killed and his wife narrowly escaped death.
According to Wollie, ‘They were most likely planted at the scene by a person or persons involved in the incident or investigation as part of a deliberate attempt to thwart the probe. The depth and quality of the original investigation by the Swedish police must be viewed with suspicion’.
His forensic report eventually formed part of the bulky Operation Deep Search findings handed to Kent Ajland by General Tai and Ponnie at the end of 2000.
In January 2003, the Swedish authorities told the media that the report had been handed to the Swedish government. Agneta Blidberg, deputy director of the prosecuting service in Stockholm and head of the investigation into the Palme murder, confirmed this after the media got wind of Operation Deep Search. ‘Yes, we have received the documents. We have instituted certain steps and interrogations,’ was Blidberg’s official reaction.
‘I cannot say what value we attach to the various connections, but the South African link remains under investigation. We have not yet pursued any further aspects in South Africa. We cannot legally do so unless we make a formal request to the South African government.’
In Operation Deep Search’s final report to the Swedish government, the two investigators arrived at the following conclusion: ‘After thorough evaluation of all the facts it is quite clear that the operator who was involved in the assassination of Mr Palme was Mr Roy Allen. All available evidence that has been reviewed supports this conclusion.’
• He was involved with Longreach for a brief period.
• He was with Craig Williamson in Sweden, as confirmed by his travel and expenses claim.
• His service records had been doctored, since they indicated that he was posted to Oshakati from 1985. The fact is that he only arrived in Oshakati in March 1986 – a week after the assassination.
• He was a well-trained operator and, at the time of his interrogation by NI in 1996/97, most of his service records were expunged.
• He began making arrangements to seek asylum in Australia immediately afterwards.
• He fitted the psychological profile of Palme’s killer.
• The .357 Magnum Desert Eagle that he was known to use was no longer on record in any arms inventory.
And that was the end of it. In 2006, Palme had been dead for twenty years and still there had been no breakthrough that would allow his assassin to be brought to book.
His murder was not only a blot on the name of those behind the scenes who had engineered his downfall, but also on his own people, or, rather, his country, which left him scandalously in the lurch – on the one hand due to the ineptitude of the Swedish police, and on the other because the politicians had apparently shied away from exposing the truth.
Perhaps this was because the Swedish system played a significant role in his death. Who knows? The silence is deafening.