Ebbe Carlsson scandal

The Ebbe Carlsson scandal was a major political scandal in Sweden which exploded in 1988.

The matter came into the public domain on 1 June 1986 when the tabloid Expressen revealed that publisher Ebbe Carlsson was carrying out his own investigation into the assassination of prime minister Olof Palme, secretly supported by the minister for justice Anna-Greta Leijon.

The scandal forced Anna-Greta Leijon to resign a week later, and was finally concluded with Ebbe Carlsson being fined for smuggling in 1992. An investigation was launched by the constitutional committee in parliament and its hearings were screened live on national television. During the hearings Anders Björck, vice-chairman of the committee, was engaged in a heated exchange of words with acclaimed ambassador Carl Lidbom. This attracted considerable attention and amusement in the public.

Background

In the autumn of 1987, prime minister Ingvar Carlsson summoned Carl Lidbom, the Swedish ambassador to France, to Stockholm. He wanted Lidbom to lead an investigation into the procedures of SÄPO, the Swedish security police. This was prompted by the escape of traitor Stig Bergling as well as the failure to find the assassin of former prime minister Olof Palme.

Carl Lidbom consulted his old acquaintance Ebbe Carlsson. The two had known each other since the early 1970's when they had both worked at the Ministry of Justice. Carlsson had good knowledge about SÄPO and contacts within its organization. Carlsson started up his own investigation and was backed by the National Police Commissioner Nils Erik Åhmansson who provided Carlsson with a bodyguard and additional collaborators within SÄPO.

Ebbe Carlsson concluded that Olof Palme had been assassinated by the kurdish organisation PKK and claimed that:
* SÄPO could have prevented the murder through telephone tapping kurds, claiming that the SÄPO operational director had known that the PKK was planning a murder in Stockholm in February 1986 (Palme was shot dead on his way home from a cinema on the late evening of February 28, 1986).
* PKK had been ordered to assassinate Palme by the Iranian government at a meeting in Damascus in 1985. The reason for this was supposedly that Palme had stopped the Iranians from acquiring the Swedish Robot 70 and that the Swedish government had classified PKK as a terrorist organisation.

On March 17 1988 Anna-Greta Leijon was briefed by Carl Lidbom about Ebbe Carlssons theories, and a few days later she also met with Carlsson himself. On March 28 the prime minister was informed by Lidbom, who was given a deadline of June 7 to confirm Carlssons theories.

On May 2, Ebbe Carlsson went to Anna-Greta Leijon to get a letter of recommendation. He intended to use this when he traveled to England, where his aim was to talk with a number of people who he thought had more information on the alleged meeting in Damascus. Leijon promptly wrote such a letter and handed it to Carlsson two days later. A copy was placed in her safe without a registration, which would have been the correct procedure.

A week later Carlsson had a meeting with chief prosecutor Jörgen Almblad where he presented his theories abot PKK. Almblad was enraged as he had not been informed about Carlssons part in the investigation prior to this meeting. He also criticised the fact that Carlsson had been given access to various top secret information.

Finally, on 30 May and 1 June 1968, Expressen journalist Peter Wendel called Anna-Greta Leijon and asked about Ebbe Carlssons involvement in the investigation. Leijon, among other things, denied that she had given Carlsson any letter of recommendation. Immediately after this, the letter was taken out of the safe, registered and thereafter classified.