Swedish Prime Minister Palme Assassinated by PKK
April 29, 1998 - 0:0
ANKARA The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was behind the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, a former commander of the Turkish Kurd rebel group was quoted as saying Tuesday. The ex-rebel chief, Semdin Sakik, was captured by Turkish forces April 13 in northern Iraq and brought back to Turkey where he has been undergoing interrogation ever since. The newspaper Sabah published Tuesday what it called the complete text of Sakik's remarks on the Palme killing.
I do not know the details of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. Nor do I know how the murder was planned or how the decision to kill him was taken. But I know that this murder was committed by the PKK, the paper quoted him as saying. Palme was gunned down by an unidentified lone assassin on February 28, 1986 as he walked down a busy Stockholm street with his wife.
The murder weapon has never been found and the motive for the assassination has never been established, despite thousands of leads over the years. Sakik said the PKK's reason for wanting to kill Palme was that the Swedish Parliament had passed a bill calling for the expulsion of people deemed terrorists, and that under the legislation, eight PKK members were kicked out of Sweden. The operation to kill Palme was given the code-name `Wedding,' and the assassination command was given by Abdullah Ocalan, Sakik said, referring to the PKK chief with whom Sakik fell out before defecting to another Kurdish group.
When ordering Palme's killing, Ocalan telephoned the head of the PKK's European operations with the words: Send Him to His Wedding, Sakik said, adding that the assassin had fled Sweden for France and then disappeared without trace. The PKK had decided not to claim responsibility for the killing. Turkish Vice Premier Bulent Ecevit confirmed Sakik's testimony as reported by the newspaper, and said the Swedish ambassador in Ankara would be informed.
A Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman in Stockholm said the information would be passed on to the special Swedish police task force responsible for the investigation into Palme's murder. (AFP)
I do not know the details of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. Nor do I know how the murder was planned or how the decision to kill him was taken. But I know that this murder was committed by the PKK, the paper quoted him as saying. Palme was gunned down by an unidentified lone assassin on February 28, 1986 as he walked down a busy Stockholm street with his wife.
The murder weapon has never been found and the motive for the assassination has never been established, despite thousands of leads over the years. Sakik said the PKK's reason for wanting to kill Palme was that the Swedish Parliament had passed a bill calling for the expulsion of people deemed terrorists, and that under the legislation, eight PKK members were kicked out of Sweden. The operation to kill Palme was given the code-name `Wedding,' and the assassination command was given by Abdullah Ocalan, Sakik said, referring to the PKK chief with whom Sakik fell out before defecting to another Kurdish group.
When ordering Palme's killing, Ocalan telephoned the head of the PKK's European operations with the words: Send Him to His Wedding, Sakik said, adding that the assassin had fled Sweden for France and then disappeared without trace. The PKK had decided not to claim responsibility for the killing. Turkish Vice Premier Bulent Ecevit confirmed Sakik's testimony as reported by the newspaper, and said the Swedish ambassador in Ankara would be informed.
A Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman in Stockholm said the information would be passed on to the special Swedish police task force responsible for the investigation into Palme's murder. (AFP)