01x04 - Episode 4

[bunniefuu]

'The following programme
contains strong language.'

"The Prime Minister of
Sweden, Mr Olof Palme,

has been assassinated."

'Stieg Larsson. I spent ten years
trying to solve the m*rder

of our Prime Minister.'

The police did not talk
to all the witnesses.

There are so many signs that this
was actually an organised crime.

The apartheid regime, its greatest
threat was a massive tide

of anti-apartheid activity
because of Olof Palme.

Alf Enerstrom, he was
Sweden's largest Palme hater.

But this was the real breakthrough.

This is the dossier on Bertil Wedin.

Stieg Larsson was right.
Bertil Wedin was

the perfect middleman in the m*rder
of our Swedish prime minister.

I felt like I was starting to see
Stieg's main theory.

The South Africans wanted
to get rid of Olof Palme

because of political motives.

There was a middleman in Europe
who connected them with someone or

some group to help in
the assassination.

But who or what I didn't know.

And I'm convinced
Stieg would have solved the m*rder.

He would have gone all the way
if he had lived.

If I was going to prove
Stieg Larsson's theory,

I knew I had to start
digging deeper around South Africa

and their secret operatives.

Over three decades later, with
apartheid gone, would anyone talk?

I managed to meet
and speak with Vic McPherson,

who had helped carry out
the bombing in London

for the South African
apartheid regime.

"A man who works
for the ANC as a researcher was

inside the building,
but only slightly hurt.

He managed to escape
through a second floor window."

I tried to find out
if there was anything else

he would tell me
about their secret operations.

Possibly the Olof Palme assassination.

When it came to South Africa,

I was having difficulty
getting any new information.

This world of spies
and agents and murders,

it's all about who you know.

You had to be careful
about your security.

You need someone with connections.

And there's one person who has better
contacts than anyone else.

Oh, Goran. How are you doing?

This is Jan calling from Sweden.

I was in South Africa.

Take care. OK.

I met Jan Stocklassa in 2015
because we had a shared interest

in the Palme case and
we've kept the contact ever since.

I am Goran Bjorkdahl.

I was a Swedish diplomat in Africa
for 15 years.

I had no intention to look
at the Palme case.

But in May 2014 I had a dinner
with a journalist in Pretoria,

and at the end of the dinner
he said, I have some documents

that I think you should look at
regarding the Olof Palme case.

I took them and I started reading
when I came into my hotel room

and I just couldn't stop.

They are copies of what is claimed
to be official documents,

top-secret documents
from the military intelligence.

They are sometimes called
the deep search papers.

And in these documents it is written
that the State Security Council

of South Africa branded Olof Palme
an Enemy of the State,

which is practically
a death sentence.

The deep search documents come from
a time when apartheid had just ended.

The situation was quite chaotic

and some people started selling documents,

maybe even faking documents.

So at first when I read it,
I was a little bit sceptical.

I had to know whether these
documents are authentic.

I handed over the deep search papers
and asked for his comment.

So this is when I realised
Stieg's theory.

The South African security forces
were working together

with Swedish right wingers
and extremists.

Fanatics.

Bertil Wedin, originally from Sweden,

he is the middleman
and he brings them all together.

I now needed to refocus my efforts
on the fanatics in Sweden.

And there was one name
I couldn't forget.

Alf Enerstrom,
Sweden's largest Palme hater.

I had found out
that his alibi was not valid.

He had told me
several important things.

He had told me how he was
asked to fund the m*rder.

He had told me he was in Sveavagen
that night, and he had told me

that he knew who was
behind the m*rder.

So I wanted to
go back to Alf Enerstrom to see

if I could find out more.

But when I tried to arrange
to meet him again, I find out

that he has passed away.

I had hit another dead end.

I needed to go back to my notes,
to the documents.

Stieg had a lot on Alf Enerstrom.
It's so interesting.

I had found out that there
was some sort of mysterious person

that seemed to be like his assistant

that spent time with him
for many years.

He worked under the pseudonym
Rikard, and he's wearing disguises.

He's wearing a wig. But at the same
time, it doesn't look like hair.

It looks like a bad perm.

This is just incredibly weird,

and I had no idea who he was.

In 1987, the security police
had asked for him to be followed.

The police wanted permission to
eavesdrop their phones.

The reason they gave was
that Alf Enerstrom

could be suspected of instigating
or inciting the m*rder.

I knew I had to track him down.

I could see in the police files
that in 1987,

only one year after the m*rder,
the secret police

had organised surveillance of Rikard,

this wig-wearing mysterious person
that was close to Alf Enerstrom

for more than a decade.

Here's all his
interviews with the police.

They started following him
in November 1986,

and in the files
was the name of the security agent

that was following him.

In the 1980s, I was asked
by the Swedish security police

to keep tabs
on a very, very strange person

that we called "The Wig Man".

He was called "The Wig Man"

because he was very often
using a huge wig

because he wanted to disguise
himself.

My boss at the security police

was interested in the wig man
because they didn't know who he was

and what his purposes was.

There were thoughts
that he might have been involved

in the m*rder of Olof Palme
in one way or another.

One year after the m*rder, Rikard was
taken in for interrogation,

and the police asked him, "What did
you do on the night of the m*rder?"

And he didn't remember.

Everybody remembers what he did in
the night of the m*rder in Sweden.

And this secret assistant to
Alf Enerstrom,

Sweden's largest Palme hater,

had no idea if he was working
or not working.

And I'd been given his real name,
David Fredin.

So with Enerstrom dead,

maybe this was the person
who could tell me more.

I've tried to write to David to see
if he would talk to me.

I've called him.
He doesn't want to talk.

So I need to take it
to another level.

I start looking at social networks,

and on Facebook I find
a few called David Fredin.

But there's only one in Sweden.

Most of their friends
are middle-aged men,

and there are several well-known
right wingers in Sweden.

Now I know I've got the right guy.

And I'm thinking,
how do I get closer to David Fredin?

But there is another person
that stands out.

It's a beautiful girl.

Maybe a little bit too beautiful
to be a real profile picture.

She's got a Czech name,
and she's called Lida Komarkova.

So I wasn't sure, but I thought it
was a fake profile.

But I think is there any other way
to get to David?

Let's at least try it.
I decided to send a brief message.

And there was no response.
Not a day later, not a week later.

Only some months later.

I'm thinking, is this a fake profile?

I'm thinking, is this a trap?

But in any case, it's worth the risk.

I was sending one message
and then she answered,

it could take it a day
or even a week.

It seems like that person
is fishing for information

about me
just as much as I am fishing.

It started to feel like
a cat and mouse game and I realised

I needed to get a reaction from this
person to see if he or she was real.

There was a pause for a few days.

And then...

I'd already been to Northern Cyprus.
I'd tracked down Alf Enerstrom.

So I was thinking, what can I lose?

So I just took a chance.

She mentioned the name of a bar.

A time.

And it said...

I had started to become
a little bit addicted

to the rush of doing
these out of the ordinary things.

So just to go to Prague
to meet a possible news source,

that seemed pretty normal, suddenly.

The Palme virus is dangerous.

You will do things
you would never expect.

So I arrive in Prague
and I go to this bar.

I sit down by the counter
and I order two Moscow mules,

and then I'm waiting.

I was there more than an hour.

The bar is pretty full with people

and I'm thinking she's not coming

or he or whoever.

There's this woman that I've seen
circling around in the bar,

but it's not the picture
from the Facebook profile.

She suddenly sits down
on the empty seat next to me

and starts drinking from
the Moscow mule.

And I'm saying,
"Hey, stop. That's not for you."

And she's saying, "Yes, it is."

I ask a couple of questions.

And then

I realised that's her.

That's Lida Komarkova.

I got to the bar some time earlier
because I wanted

to check on him, what he's doing,
how he's behaving.

He looks kind of safe. No danger.
So I go over to him.

I'm a little bit suspicious

of what her purposes are
and what she's hiding.

At that stage, I'm living in Prague.

I live a normal life,
normal friends,

with a normal job
from ten till five.

And it's so boring.

I just needed excitement and
I just needed a kick in my life.

And it felt like an adventure.

It felt like fun to meet
the guy from Sweden in a bar.

Why not?

It's a crazy story that
just keeps getting crazier.

Sometimes I just create
fake profiles.

It's fun. You can choose
how you look like, your hair.

I had about, I don't know,
five fake profiles,

and one of them was Lida.

I've been joining lots of groups

about things
that I was interested in.

And sometimes I would add people
from the groups as a friend.

And one of them was David.

Jan starts to tell me about he's
interested in Olof Palme's m*rder.

I'm telling her
why I'm looking into David Fredin.

For that David might have
some information.

And she sort of lights up.

I can see that she thinks this is
quite exciting,

and I'm thinking
maybe she can help me,

even if she doesn't know him
that well.

I wasn't close to trusting her,
but at the same time,

this is my only chance
to get closer to David Fredin.

If you don't risk anything,
you don't get anything.

I told him, I see what I can do.

I'll get back to you.

Hey, Goran, how's it going?

How would it work?

I spoke to the general
in the military intelligence

and asked him, what do you think?

Would it be possible
to promote the kind of negotiation

where Sweden, or the prosecutor,
gives you immunity

against prosecution,
and the guys who did it,

they come forward
- and tell the story.
- Wow.

I was called by a man
active in intelligence.

Let's call him Frank.

He will arrange a meeting for me
with somebody very important.

He said you come to the Hyatt Hotel
at 1:30.

We sat at the table.

Frank tells me that we are going to
see this very high-ranking general

in the military intelligence
in South Africa,

somebody who is active today.

And then a man comes over
to our table and he sat down.

He tells me that he knows all about
my idea for Sweden to give immunity

against prosecution
if the guys who did it come forward.

He had three meetings
with the Army leadership

in South Africa in order
to prepare for this meeting,

and they had given him
the mandate to talk to me.

I realised then
that there is a misunderstanding.

They all seem to assume
that I was on official business,

that I was representing
the Swedish government,

which I wasn't.
This is just a hobby.

I'm thinking that I may get very,
very important information here.

So I turn on the recorder
on my mobile phone...

And he said, this is dangerous
and I should be careful.

So he said that South Africa
is willing to help

Sweden solve the case.
But there were two conditions.

One condition was that
no South African could

ever be prosecuted because they were
under orders of their government.

The general explains to me
that I should take this information

to the intelligence in Sweden

and that the two intelligence
services in South Africa and Sweden,

they were going to prepare
the solution -

or how it should be presented.

Wow. Yeah, that was
a pretty clear message for me.

This confirms what you and I have
been thinking for many years.

There was actually South African
involvement in the m*rder.

It sounded close to an admission.

The South Africans
would consider some kind of deal

to close the case forever.

But Stieg's theory was
they hadn't acted alone.

The South Africans were
using the middleman,

Bertil Wedin, to connect them
to the Swedish right wingers.

I tried to get to the mystery
assistant, David Fredin,

who had worked for a decade
with Alf Enerstrom

and operated under a pseudonym. Rikard.

But it had seemingly come to nothing.

And then, a few months later,

on the doorstep, I found an envelope
and it was stamped in Prague.

I opened it and
there was a USB stick inside.

I was taking a risk when I put it
straight into my computer,

but I was curious. When I open it up,

I see it's something I would
never have expected.

I assumed that the USB stick
came from Lida Komarkova in Prague,

but I couldn't know.
When I open it up,

there were two folders. One called
Facebook. One called Emails.

And I opened one of them.

And there's a dialogue between
Lida Komarkova and David Fredin,

this wig-wearing mysterious assistant

that was close to Alf Enerstrom
for more than a decade.

It's unbelievable.

Lida has managed to lead David Fredin
to tell things that he had probably

never told anybody
through three decades.

How did she do this?

And I found a couple of messages
where he's actually speaking about

his hatred against all of parliament,
even one when he's celebrating

the anniversary of the m*rder,
drinking a glass of wine

to celebrate the death of the traitor

and how he has
planned to m*rder Olof Palme

when he was 12, 13 years old,

thinking that he could get away
with it since he was so young.

It's like being a fly on the wall
on the Palme hater at the time.

These right-wing fanatics
thought that Palme was a traitor,

that he was actually
travelling to Moscow.

Sweden would become another
region of the Soviet Union.

So David is quite open
telling them about Dr Enerstrom,

who he admires, who he had been
working for, for several years,

and then suddenly he's
talking about another person

that he admires a lot,
about the mysterious friend.

And it takes quite a long time. But
then in the end, he says who it is.

It's Bertil Wedin,
the middleman in Cyprus.

Bertil Wedin, a man who had
connections to one of South Africa's

most famous operatives and K*llers,
Craig Williamson.

And he also tells me that
Alf Enerstrom knew Bertil Wedin.

Immediately, as I read this,
I got goosebumps.

Enerstrom knows the middleman,
Bertil Wedin,

who is working for
the South African Security Service

with Craig Williamson at the top.

This is really big. Nobody had ever
made that connection.

Stieg Larsson didn't make
the connection.

The Swedish police didn't make
the connection.

This was the first time.

So suddenly there is a connection
between all of the cells

that were needed to actually
carry out this k*lling.

There's still one other folder.

And I click on it and
there are at least 5,000 emails...

between David Fredin and
Bertil Wedin.

It's unbelievable.

And I'm thinking,
who the hell is this woman

and how did she get these?

I have friends
that can do interesting things.

I decided that it's ethically OK.

It's of high public interest.

And I start reading and I stay there
for several hours.

Just reading and reading.

They are paranoid.
They mention all the time

how they think they're hacked.
How they're being bugged.

They're describing people
that are following them.

Bertil is giving advice
how David should act.

And in one email, David asks for
advice on a woman on Facebook

who has approached him,

and he describes how
interested she's been

in the Palme assassination.

Bertil Wedin replies and tells David
not to mention his name

in such serious matters.

But for the first time I saw my own
name in an email from David

to Bertil Wedin,
the hair on the back of my neck rose.

Cos I realised they're on to me
as I'm on to them.

I try once more to get
in touch with David.

I write to him, I call him,
but he refuses to speak to me.

Why do you refuse to
talk with Jan Stocklassa?

He doesn't like what I was doing.
It doesn't like that

I'm anti-communist.

He read thousands of my emails
and yet I'm not surprised.

You know, this is a business like
any business.

The Cold w*r never ended.

Interview with the man
formerly known as Rikard.

My name is David Fredin.

And because of the political situation,

I used an alias, Rikard.

I used a wig to be more
difficult to identify me

by hostile elements like the KGB.

My father told me that

there was an arrest of
a Soviet spy in my country.

It was a colonel in the Air Force.

And so I knew, you know,
from a young age, what a spy was.

So when I saw Mr Palme, who was then
the prime minister of Sweden,

walking alongside the North
Vietnamese ambassador to Moscow,

I suspected, at that age,

that Palme was also somebody
that spied.

In 1985,

I made my way into Stockholm,

and this was the first time
I met Dr Enerstrom.

He dedicated his life to be
a real opposition for us to Palme.

There was nobody else out there
who wanted to do the job.

They called it Palme hatred.

I eventually became
Dr Enerstrom's assistant.

Dr Enerstrom's goal

was that Palme
should not win elections.

They had a lot of names
of people who donated in money,

sometimes from the United States.

So I was in charge of
the briefcase with the names

and addresses and telephone numbers.

Sometimes they dropped money
at a public toilet,

but where you draw down
the paper towels.

I was told that the day
before he was k*lled,

Palme met with
the Soviet intelligence

to hand over the case of the kingdom
to the KGB.

He's one of the worst traitors
in Swedish history.

I can't find anybody
that does Sweden so much harm.

So I'm convinced that David Fredin
knows much more than he's telling us.

Alf Enerstrom, he had told me that he
had been on Sveavagen that night,

he had told me that he had been asked
to fund the m*rder,

and he had told me
that he knew who was involved -

and it included
members of the police.

I know that there was
someone that came to Dr Enerstrom.

I think he worked for the Swedish
police, some branch of it,

and brought up the question
of an assassination,

of removing Palme.

But Dr Enerstrom told me afterwards
that he turned them down.

Come on. This is Sweden's biggest
Palme hater who no longer

has an alibi for the m*rder.

Neither of them have an alibi
for the night.

Most people don't have alibis
for a night.

And if you have an alibi, you should
start to wonder, you know?

You know, it's a bit suspicious.

Something is telling me I'm getting
closer and closer to the truth.

Be careful
who you believe and who you trust.

Most of Jan Stocklassa's information
comes from Stieg Larsson.

And we shouldn't trust Stieg Larsson
and the communists.

If somebody asks me about who is
behind Lida Komarkova,

I would say she is working for
the Russian Secret Service, FSB,

previous KGB. That would be
a logical conclusion.

Jan Stocklassa's behaviour is
the same.

He's doing beneficial works
for the Russian intelligence.

He's doing everything
like a KGB agent.

He might not be a KGB agent,
but he's doing the same stuff.

And I think somebody
needs to tell him to shut up.

Everything I've seen and heard
makes me

more convinced than ever that
Stieg Larsson's theory stands up.

At the height of the Cold w*r,

the hatred against Palme
was being whipped into a frenzy.

Fanatics on the right were willing
and ready to k*ll Olof Palme.

But that was just part of the story.

So here's how I think it happened.

Olof Palme had many enemies
on the world stage,

but there were two groups
in particular who came

together in February 1986.

South Africa had named him
an enemy of the state

because of his political activities.

This was a regime
desperately clinging to power.

Olof Palme was the driving force,
the general,

the commandant of the international
movement against apartheid.

In Sweden, the right wingers wanted

to get rid of him because
they thought he was a traitor.

These two separate groups, they had
double motives but with a shared aim.

The operation to k*ll Olof Palme
had been planned by South Africa.

There was a planning group operated
with someone like

possibly Craig Williamson.

Hunt them down,
catch them and sh**t them.

One of the foulest individuals
that has walked this Earth.

Someone who knew Sweden,
who had contacts there.

Williamson shouldn't have
been there in Sweden.

By this time, he's known as The Spy.

But even South Africa's
best operatives needed

contacts and
assistance on the ground.

So they turned to someone who they
had worked extensively with before.

The middleman who had
a foot in both countries.

Bertil Wedin.

I had proved
that Bertil Wedin had contacts

with fanatics inside Sweden
that despised Palme.

Individuals in many of the groups
Stieg had been investigating.

But I believe an incredibly
important contact was

Sweden's biggest Palme hater.

He was a man who had money,
influential backers,

and access to plenty of fanatics
who believed

Palme was about to turn Sweden
into another Soviet state.

And like he said,
I think one or two extremists

he knew within the police
had helped carry out the operation.

They have walkie-talkies,

they're communicating, they're being
seen by several witnesses.

And it all combined
into an organised setup

to k*ll our Prime Minister.

I may not be able to show
who pulled the trigger,

but to me this is almost irrelevant
because I think we found

who was ultimately behind
the assassination,

their motives and how it happened.

After my ten years of investigation,

I decided to compile my material
and hand everything in to the police.

And then the prosecutor steps out and
says, "We have solved the m*rder."

And I'm saying, "Wow."

I had put in so much work
for so many years,

my life had been turned upside down.

I'd put myself to danger but now
everything was going to be worth it.

I have helped them to crack the case,

solve this unsolvable riddle.

So it's been building up
for a few months.

We're coming close to the day
when they will announce

who m*rder*d our Prime Minister.

And the whole of Sweden
is standing still.

Everybody's waiting for what
the police will say.

Finally, after 34 years, the Swedes
were going to have the truth

about who k*lled Olof Palme and why.

And then the press conference starts.

I'm nervous. I'm excited.

They start mentioning
everything I have investigated,

the adrenaline, it's just pumping.

And it's like a detective story has
become real life.

Finally the case will be solved.

And we have been part of that.

When I'm looking at this press
conference, I'm beginning to notice

their body language and
they don't look confident at all.

But I'm starting to sense that
there's something that is not right.

And then they come
with the big revelation.

Stieg Engstrom is a witness
who contacted the police

several times
to ask to be interviewed.

He is a graphic designer
at the insurance company Skandia

that is situated very close
to the crossing

where Palme was assassinated.

I'm f*cking angry. It's outrageous.

There is no m*rder weapon,
there are no forensics,

and there is no motive at all.

No way. No f*cking way.

They've spent all this time,
all this money,

and all we got was a f*cking ugly
PowerPoint presentation.

I know they're wrong,
they know they're wrong,

but they're still saying it. It's...

The suspect is dead so we can't
pursue the investigation anymore.

Full stop.

They're saying
that it's not South Africa.

It's not a conspiracy. It's this
graphic designer working overtime

who we know clocks out just one to
two minutes before the m*rder.

Where did he get the g*n from?

How come he stepped out of the door
just at the right moment?

And what motive did he have?

He's not the one that I saw.

It wasn't "The Skandia Man"
who k*lled our Prime Minister.

It was the prosecutors
who k*lled the investigation

by using "The Skandia Man".

We are definitely being lied to
and this is extremely disturbing

and there is something rotten
at the centre of it.

If it looks like a cover-up,
if it smells as a cover-up,

it is a cover-up.

After the press conference,
I felt completely empty

and disappointed.1⁄2
Me too.

And I called my intelligence contact
in South Africa.

They wanted him to tell me
a little bit about what

had been said in South Africa, and I
actually record the conversation.

"Ah-ha."

"OK."

"OK."
It's outrageous.

So there was a deal.

Exactly. There is finally a deal.

But a deal to put the lid on,
- it seems.
- Yeah.

There must be something really,
really sensitive

that cannot see
the light of the day.

And we don't know exactly
what that is.

Many years of work.

And they blew it.

With the right people
in the right way,

they would solve it
in a few months' time.

And I believe it will be the solution
that Stieg Larsson laid out

30 years ago.

The Swedish people deserve better.

I think that Stieg Larsson
deserves better.

And I definitely think Olof Palme
and his family deserve better.

What would you like the first line
of your obituary to say?

The moment people begin to
think of their obituaries,

they start to be scared.

They don't dare to do things
and they lose their vitality.

What's the legacy of my father?

I remember him
as being very brave to confront

society's injustices
wherever he saw them.

What is... apartheid?

It is a continued development

of the privileged r*cist minority.

He said that you should
see yourself in action.

You can't only be,
you have to act to be.

Olof Palme was an inspiration
to millions way beyond the borders

of his own country.
And in that sense,

he is still a loss.

We say we should forgive and forget.

I'll never forgive them
for k*lling Olof Palme.

I'll never forget it.

I don't think it's too late
to solve this crime.

Even if the police
and the prosecutor have given up,

the rest of us haven't.

There are thousands upon thousands
of us

all around the world
who had the Palme virus.

It infected Stieg Larsson.

It infected me.

And just like a real virus,
once you catch it,

pass it on to those you get close to.