On 28 February 1986, at 23:21 CET (22:21 UTC), Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, was fatally wounded by a single gunshot while walking home from a cinema with his wife Lisbeth Palme on the central Stockholm street Sveavägen. Lisbeth Palme was slightly wounded by a second shot. The couple did not have bodyguards with them.
Christer Pettersson, who had previously been convicted of manslaughter in an unrelated case, was convicted of the Palme murder in 1988 after Mrs. Palme identified him as the assailant. However, on appeal to Svea Court of Appeal, he was acquitted. A petition for a new trial, filed by the prosecutor, was denied by the Supreme Court of Sweden. Pettersson died on 29 September 2004, legally innocent of the Palme assassination.
On 10 June 2020, chief prosecutor Krister Petersson, in charge of the investigation, announced his conclusion that Stig Engström, also known as the "Skandia Man", was the most likely suspect. No direct evidence was presented but the prosecutor mentioned Engström's past knowledge of weapons, friendship with anti-Palme circles and similar clothes as described by certain witnesses. However, as Engström had died on 26 June 2000, and no further investigative or judicial measures were possible, the investigation was officially closed. The decision to name Engström as a suspect was widely criticised.
At a December 2025 press conference it was announced that Stig Engström no longer was the main suspect of the assassination, but that the investigation would not be reopened.
Other theories about the murder have also been proposed. In 2018, the former businessman Jan Stocklassa conducted an investigation, which itself was based on the writer Stieg Larsson's own investigation. In 2023, this investigation was presented in the HBO Max documentary The Man Who Played With Fire.
Assassination
Despite being Prime Minister, Palme sought to live as ordinary a life as possible. He would often go out without any bodyguard protection, and the night of his murder was one such occasion. (According to Joakim Palme, Olof Palme tried to reach his bodyguard detail prior to going to the cinema, but for unknown reasons failed to reach them.) Walking home from the Grand Cinema with his wife Lisbeth Palme on the central Stockholm street of Sveavägen, close to midnight on 28 February 1986, the couple were attacked by a lone gunman. Palme was fatally shot in the back at close range at 23:21 CET. A second shot wounded Lisbeth.
Police said that a taxi driver used his mobile radio to raise an alarm, and two girls in a nearby car tried to assist. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Sabbatsberg Hospital at 00:06 on 1 March 1986.
The attacker escaped eastwards on Tunnelgatan.
Deputy Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson immediately assumed the duties of Prime Minister as the new leader of the Social Democratic Party.
Tributes
As a sign of national mourning after the assassination of Prime Minister Palme on March 1 and 15, on the day of the funeral in Sweden, flags were lowered to half-staff and many cultural and entertainment events were cancelled, while the radio played subdued music. Cuba, Portugal, Nicaragua and Ghana declared three days of national mourning, India, Argentina and Yugoslavia declared a day of national mourning.
Funeral
Palme's funeral was held on 15 March 1986. The funeral ceremony, a two-hour secular service held in the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall, was attended by foreign dignitaries from 125 nations, schoolchildren, activists from Palme's Social Democratic Party, members of the Swedish royal family and Palme's family. Eulogies to Palme were given by King Carl XVI Gustaf, Palme's successor as Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democratic Party Ingvar Carlsson, Minister for Foreign Affairs Sten Andersson, Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and President of the Socialist International and former Chancellor of West Germany Willy Brandt. Musical performances were given by a small orchestra led by jazz musician Arne Domnérus – one of Palme's favorite musicians – and by Finnish singer Arja Saijonmaa, who sang a Swedish-language version of Gracias a la vida by Chilean singer-songwriter Violeta Parra.
After the ceremony in the Stockholm City Hall, Palme's coffin was brought in a public funeral procession through central Stockholm to Adolf Fredrik Church, near the scene of the assassination, where the burial was to take place. An estimated 150,000 members of the public took part in the procession. At Adolf Fredrik Church, a smaller ceremony was held, attended only by Palme's family and a handful of guests.
Among the foreign dignitaries who attended Palme's funeral ceremony:
Palme's funeral was also attended by representatives from organizations such as:
Five countries – Afghanistan, Cambodia, Chile, Paraguay and South Africa – were not invited to send delegations to the funeral, in a pointed demonstration of Palme's fight for human rights. Instead, several opposition figures from those countries were invited, such as South African anti-apartheid fighters Desmond Tutu and Allan Boesak, and Chilean politician Gabriel Valdés, an opponent of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Sequence of events
Cinema decision
Palme's decision to visit the Grand Cinema was made at very short notice. Lisbeth Palme had discussed seeing a film when she was at work during the afternoon, and called her son, Mårten Palme, at 17:00 to talk about the film at the Grand Cinema. Olof Palme did not hear about the plans until at home, at 18:30, when he met with his wife, by which time Palme had already declined any further personal bodyguard protection from the security service. He talked to his son about the plans on the phone, and they eventually decided to join Mårten and his girlfriend, who had already purchased tickets for themselves to see the Swedish comedy Bröderna Mozart (The Mozart Brothers) by Suzanne Osten. This decision was made at about 20:00. The police later searched Palme's apartment, as well as Lisbeth's and Mårten's workplaces, for wire-bugging devices or traces of such equipment, but did not find any.
Grand Cinema
At 20:30 the Palmes left their apartment, unescorted, heading for the Gamla stan metro station. Several people witnessed their short walk to the station and, according to the later police investigation, commented on the lack of bodyguards. The couple took the subway train to the Rådmansgatan station, from where they walked to the Grand Cinema. They met their son and his girlfriend just outside the cinema around 21:00. Olof Palme had not yet purchased tickets which were by then almost sold out. Recognizing the prime minister, the ticket clerk wanted him to have the best seats, and therefore sold Palme the theatre director's seats.
Murder
After the screening, the two couples (Olof & Lisbeth, and their son Mårten, with girlfriend) stayed outside the theatre for a while but separated at about 23:15. Olof and Lisbeth Palme headed south on the west side of Sveavägen, towards the northern entrance of the Hötorget metro station. When they reached the Adolf Fredrik Church, they crossed Sveavägen and continued on the street's east side. They stopped a moment to look at something in a shop window, then continued past the Dekorima (later Kreatima, now Urban Deli) shop which was then located on the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.
At 23:21, a man appeared from behind, shot Mr. Palme at point-blank range and fired a second shot at Mrs. Palme. The perpetrator then jogged down Tunnelgatan street, up the steps to Malmskillnadsgatan, and continued down David Bagares gata [street], where he was last seen.
Timeline
Thanks to time stamps on the radio chatter in the central dispatch centre, the events immediately after the murder have been determined with very high precision.
- 23:21:30 – Palme and his wife are shot.
- 23:22:20 – A witness calls emergency services to report the shooting, but the call is misdirected and the caller is not put through to the police.
- 23:23:40 – A Järfälla Taxi switchboard operator calls the police dispatch centre to pass on a message from one of its drivers to the effect that someone has been shot at the corner of Sveavägen and Tunnelgatan.
- 23:24:00 (approx.) – A police patrol, stationed a few hundred meters away, arrives on scene after being alerted by a second taxi driver who heard of the shooting on his taxi radio.
- 23:24:40 – The emergency dispatch centre is contacted by the police concerning the shooting on Sveavägen. The dispatch centre operator denies knowledge about any such events.
- 23:24:00–23:25:30 (approx.) – A patrol wagon – stationed at Malmskillnadsgatan, not far from the attacker's escape route – arrives and is ordered by the commanding officer to hunt for the attacker.
- 23:25:00 (approx.) – An ambulance, which just happens to be passing the crime scene, is flagged down and assists the victims.
- 23:26:00 – The police dispatch centre calls the SOS emergency centre to assure them they are informed about the events on the Sveavägen/Tunnelgatan intersection.
- A third police patrol arrives.
- A second ambulance arrives.
- 23:28:00 – The first ambulance leaves for the Sabbatsberg Hospital, around a kilometre away from the scene, with both victims. Mrs Palme, suffering only a minor graze to her back, refuses to leave her husband.
- 23:30:00 – The police superintendent in charge at the scene informs the police dispatch centre that the prime minister was the victim.
- 23:31:40 – The emergency dispatch centre is informed that the ambulance has arrived at the hospital.
- 23:37:00–23:40:00 – The emergency dispatch centre is informed by the ambulance that the prime minister was the victim, that he's fatally wounded and likely not going to survive.
- 00:06:00 – Palme is pronounced dead.
- 00:45:00 – Deputy Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson arrives at Rosenbad, the office of the Swedish government.
- 01:10:00 – First radio broadcast about the murder.
- 04:00:00 – First television broadcast.
- 05:15:00 – The government holds a press conference.
Leads from the crime scene
The only forensic leads left by the assassin were the two bullets fired, identified as Winchester-Western .357 Magnum 158 grain metal piercing. Both bullets matched the lead fragments found in the clothing of Olof and Lisbeth Palme. Because the weapon was a revolver (which does not automatically eject cartridge cases) there were no cases to recover for ballistic examination – only the two bullets recovered from the street. From the bullets' lack of certain characteristic deformations, investigators concluded they had been fired from a barrel no shorter than 10 cm (4 inches); thus the murder weapon would have been a conspicuously large handgun. The singularly most used weapon for this type of ammunition is the Smith & Wesson .357, which is why great efforts were made to locate a weapon of this make.
Throughout the investigation, Swedish police test-fired approximately 500 Magnum revolvers. The investigation placed particular emphasis on tracking down ten Magnum revolvers reported stolen at the time of the murder. Out of these all were located except the Sucksdorff revolver, a weapon stolen from the Stockholm home of Swedish filmmaker Arne Sucksdorff in 1977. The person who stole the weapon was a friend of drug dealer Sigvard "Sigge" Cedergren, who claimed on his deathbed that he had lent a gun of the same type to Christer Pettersson two months prior to the assassination.
Another weapon that has figured prominently in the investigation is the so-called Mockfjärd gun. This weapon, a revolver of the type Smith & Wesson Model 28 ("Highway Patrolman") with .357 Magnum caliber, was first purchased legally by a civilian in the northern Swedish city of Luleå. The gun, along with 91 metal-piercing bullets, was stolen in a burglary in Haparanda in 1983 and is believed to have been used in the robbery of a post office in Mockfjärd, Dalarna that same year. A lead isotope analysis of a bullet fired during the robbery confirmed it to have the same isotopic composition as the bullets retrieved from the assassination crime scene, verifying that the bullets were manufactured at the same time. In the autumn of 2006, Swedish police, acting on a tip communicated to the Expressen newspaper, retrieved a Smith & Wesson .357 revolver from a lake in Dalarna. The gun was determined to be the same one used in the post office robbery in Mockfjärd, confirmed by the gun's serial number. The gun was transferred to the National Laboratory of Forensic Science in Linköping for further analysis. However, the laboratory concluded in May 2007 that tests on the gun could not confirm whether it was used in the Palme assassination, as it was too rusty.
In 2021, another Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver was found in the Bällstaviken river in West Stockholm, by Paul D'Arcy.