01x03 - Episode 3

[bunniefuu]

The following programme contains
strong language

and scenes, which some viewers may
find distressing.

Everybody's pointing the finger
at the other guy saying, "He did it."

The eternal question that you have
to keep in your head all the time is,

"Can I trust anybody?"

His m*rder
remains unsolved.

The police did not talk
to all the witnesses.

The country's
current leader said

the m*rder was an open wound
for the nation.

These boxes are the ones
that actually changed everything.

The archive of Stieg Larsson.

For Stieg, it was not only
a matter of solving a mystery.

To solve this m*rder
will save the democracy of Sweden.

I began to wonder if Stieg thought

local fanatics were somehow

involved in the assassination.

I finally come to three
really important dossiers.

Number one: Alf Enerstrom.

Described as Sweden's largest
Palme-hater in Stieg's research.

We have Alf Enerstrom
with an alibi

that no longer holds.

Viktor Gunnarsson,
described as a far-right crackpot.

This is where the body was laid.

It appeared to be an execution.

This is the dossier
on Bertil Wedin.

This was the real breakthrough.

Stieg felt that this man

could hold the key
to the whole mystery.

I love Swedish coffee.
It's stronger than anywhere else.

This will wake you up.

There are so many signs that
this was not just a lone k*ller.

There's a lot pointing
to an organised crime.

Stieg was looking at the possibility
that local extremist fanatics,

really active in hate
against Olof Palme,

may be involved in the m*rder
of our Prime Minister.

It's pretty amazing. These people

that Stieg had researched
and mapped out

and either handed in warnings

or they were in the vicinity
of the k*lling that night

and they all mixed
in to the same circles.

There was one dossier left

about the possible middleman,
Bertil Wedin.

There's a huge amount
of research put into this

by Stieg and by his contacts
outside Sweden.

There's Wedin's passport,
there are ID cards

and all of this
they must have got in a way

that I can't really imagine how.

It was clear from the amount of
detail and the number of pages

that this guy was of major
importance to Stieg's investigation.

"Tip from a person with connections
to the extreme right.

Rumour that W acted as a middleman

in the m*rder of Olof Palme."

I spent some time wondering
what a middleman is.

That word, what does it mean?

It's actually a really
interesting question.

What does a middleman do?

He facilitates.

He makes something possible, bringing

some different sides,
some different parties together,

possibly to a common goal.

So in this dossier, there's a memo,

and Stieg has written this
for his friend Gerry Gable in London.

It's several pages long

and it says,
"Bertil Wedin was born in Sweden,

a right winger who was really active
in the hate against Olof Palme,

but was last known
to be living in Northern Cyprus.

Someone must have sneaked in
to Bertil Wedin,

or maybe to the police
in Northern Cyprus,

and somehow got their hands
on these documents.

I began to see
that Bertil Wedin may be connected

to all these threads
that Stieg is investigating.

There was a possibility
that he was working with the CIA,

and the Swedish secret police,
and MI6 in the UK.

He was even associated
with Stay Behind,

the secret resistance movement
in Sweden,

created by the USA.

Stieg was clearly fascinated
by Bertil Wedin,

so I got in touch with people
who knew Stieg

to find out why.

Gerry was now quite old and ill,

but he was prepared to help me
because of his compassion for Stieg.

Gerry gave me more contacts.

In the dossier,
Stieg wrote this memo.

Previous sources claim
that Wedin mainly

worked for the South African
secret police

since the 1970s.

And I'm starting to wonder...

what has South Africa
got to do with the m*rder

of a Swedish Prime Minister?

And how did Bertil Wedin
fit into it all?

The people were simply
no longer prepared to listen.

The government hoped it would end.

They wanted the people
off the streets.

They wanted the children
back in school.

They wanted the impossible.

There has never been
a time like this.

There is a battle to fight
and I will not stop.

I will not give up.

As long as this government is
still in power, we must not stop.

As long as these people
are still here,

we must not stop.

Africa at that time was a continent

almost at the beginning

of its major transition.

People were determined to...

break the chains of colonisation.

And in South Africa,

apartheid, that had become

the official policy of the country.

The best single
illustration of apartheid

is to be seen
at Johannesburg station.

Separate buses
for whites and blacks,

separate railway stations,
separate trains.

They've got no education
and it'll take them

a couple of hundred years. They've
only just come down from the trees.

Thousands of black South Africans

pour off the trains
from the Soweto Township,

like any normal commuters,
except that they have no choice.

No choice but to live in Soweto,

no choice but to go back there.

It's not racialistic

to wish and to desire
to be yourself and to be your own.

We only wish to preserve,
I say, what is dear to us.

Send our children to schools
where they can be educated

in our ways of culture, just ours.

White supremacy had embedded itself

in the fabric
of South African society.

Olof Palme became key

in the fight against apartheid.

Olof Palme was a sworn enemy
of apartheid.

Many Africans are arrested
in the slums.

Their oppression and racism

will never be included
in a free world.

Minority rule is coming to an end

and Southern Africa
is rapidly moving towards

an uncertain cl*max.

His government had been
giving support

to the organised
liberation movements,

like the African National Congress.

The sight of the corpses
produced by apartheid violence...

...is the gruesome daily reply

for having dared to rise up

and demand freedom now.

That's Dad with Olof Palme.

That was the beginning
of a revolution,

and I was there.

I mean, look,
you can see from this picture

their delight
in just being together.

Yeah. Sometimes,
friendships are forged in fire.

My name is Dali Tambo.

My father, Oliver Tambo,
was the president of the ANC,

the African National Congress.

My father would tell me
about Olof Palme.

They were brothers. Brothers
in arms, brothers in struggle.

They loved each other deeply.

He was a tremendous aide
at a time when...

not every Western government

or European government
was even interested.

I have will have nothing
to do with any organisation

that practises violence.
I've never seen anyone

from the ANC and would not do so.

The South African government
is under no obligation

to negotiate the future
of the country with any organisation

that uses t*rror1st tactics.

The time for gentlemanly
politics was over.

We're not going to ask

to sit at the table.
We're going to kick over the table.

We're not going to knock
on any door. We're going to...

We're going to bang it open.

Sweden supports what it calls

national liberation movements,
others calling them

guerrilla movements of the people.
If I call them t*rrorists?

We have experienced that those who...

were called t*rrorists
sooner or later

appear as responsible governments

that are recognised and hailed
in the whole Western world.

He believed in our struggle.

He believed in our natural right...

...to fight for our freedom.

Sweden does sometimes seem
a bit as if it wishes

to be the conscience of the world.

I always said that
the liberation from colonialism

and racism of the African peoples

is a historic necessity.

Stieg's trail had now taken me
to a whole new continent.

What started out with this dossier

about this Swedish right winger
called Bertil Wedin...

...the possible middleman

and somehow led me
to this horrendous regime,

r*cist regime in South Africa.

The more I looked through this
material, the more I realised that

this wasn't only about the moral
support Palme was giving

to the anti-apartheid groups.

This was also about money.

I could see that Palme's government

had a team involved
in covert financial operations

to bring down the apartheid regime.

My name is Birgitta Karlstrom Dorph

and some people have called me

"Palme's secret agent."

My job was to find organisations

and people inside South Africa,

which we could support with money.

It was very dangerous

because the South Africa apartheid,

they wanted to get rid of people
who were working

against the government.

I met Olof Palme.

I was very inspired by him.
He was threatening

the state of South Africa

because of all this money
we were able to get to South Africa.

My name is Birgitta Karlstrom Dorph,

and I am a Swedish diplomat.

I worked for 44 years
for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs

in various conflicted countries,
I could say.

I remember my first day
in South Africa,

Sun went up...
Nice smell, you know.

So I thought,
"Hey, I must go out now."

Early, you know,
it was a Sunday morning.

Then suddenly
there's this bench, you know.

Wooden bench.

And it said, "Whites only."

And I spit on the bench.

You know, I usually don't
go around spitting, you know?

But...
...that's what I felt like

Spit at it.

I thought,
"Hey, I must now contribute,

so there won't be any benches
like this in South Africa."

I met people,
ask them to write down

what they wanted,
what they were doing,

detailed budgets,

and via secret messages
we have all over the world.

I sent them
to the government organisation

under the Ministry
for Foreign Affairs.

They had a small office in Stockholm

and then they had a list
on which organisations

can be given resistance support.

But the Swedish government
couldn't send money directly

to organisations
inside South Africa.

So the Swedish government
put money into an account

in Switzerland.

The people in the resistance

went to Switzerland,
took the money out,

and the money he or she had

was given to an organisation
inside South Africa.

And it worked.

We were trying to send
the money in various ways.

For example,
the Swedish church could then send

to a church in South Africa,
many various ways.

If the South African
government had known about this,

they would not have been pleased,
to say the least.

So that was very secret
and there were very few people

who knew about it.

I remember going to Sweden

and a young woman
who was the representative

of the government gave me
100,000 rand.

I had a double-breasted fawn suit.

I don't even know whether
the colour is known today anymore.

We opened up the lining

and we stuffed the money
all around the inside

of the jacket and sewed it up
again at the airport.

They make you walk through
that thing that goes off.

I just simply took
the jacket off and casually

threw it on the table
on that side and walked through.

Let them pat me down,

hoping that they wouldn't look.

And they didn't.

"From the time
Olof Palme was elected

Prime Minister in 1969,

the Swedish assistance for
the freedom fight in Africa

was roughly $1 billion."

I honestly do not think
that any other country matched

those financial contributions.

Olof Palme was the driving force,

not only in the humanitarian aid,

but also in the covert
military assistance.

Palme must have known
that some of that money

that the ANC was getting
in those earlier years

was to buy g*ns or train people

for military action.

Today, the gutted homes

of local town councillors are visual
proof of the Government's failure

to protect their own, and the mobs
wreaked a terrible vengeance

on anyone co-operating with
the apartheid system of government.

We can make a difference...

...in our country, right now.

We are fighting a battle

and we are winning.

It depends on you.

The apartheid regime's
greatest threat

was a massive tide
of anti-apartheid activity,

which was coalescing
and coming together...

...because of Olof Palme.

The sanctions that
were gaining internationally,

their moral justification
that was crumbling,

their political authority
that was crumbling.

And they knew that internally,

they would not be able
to break the resistance.

If you put all of that
together, by 1985,

they had to announce
the first state of emergency.

This state of affairs
can no longer be tolerated.

For 36 districts
in South Africa,

the security forces yesterday
became the rule of law.

Emergency legislation
that allows them

to arrest anyone without a warrant,

imprison them
without access to a lawyer,

and seal off townships at will.

It was very dangerous
for many people, especially those

who were actively working
against the government.

Freedom is not real.

We are going to have a freedom
of which we're gonna be proud.

I remember once,
when I was at home,

when I came out into the hall,

there was something on the floor.

There was a b*llet on the floor.

Yeah. I'm not used
to seeing b*ll*ts.

And then I looked up
and there was a hole in the window.

I asked my friends, you know,
"What is this now?

I mean, what did they...?"
'Ah, they just want to say that,

"We know where you are and
following what you're doing

with Olof Palme.'"

Stieg's files,
it's like a huge puzzle

where you have a million pieces
that don't belong,

and I'm trying to pick out the right
ones that really fit together.

Stieg had put in an incredible
amount of work into this.

All his free time and weekends,

holidays, staying up late nights,

holed up in his apartment.

I think Stieg was obsessed
with exposing the culprits.

And he even wrote about the m*rder
in all of his novels.

It can literally eat you up.
And that's what happened to me.

I spent ten years on this.

As I dug deeper,

I could see the South Africans'
political motives

to k*ll our Prime Minister.

Palme saw to it
that Sweden was financing

the ANC with 50% of its budget

to try and bring down
the apartheid regime,

which, at the time,
had the full backing

of Western governments
like the US and Britain.

But I still didn't know
how Bertil Wedin was connected

to the m*rder of Olof Palme.

Did he really fit into this?

When I was reading through
the papers in the dossier,

I found that from the late 70s
and the early 80s...

...Bertil Wedin was travelling
back and forth from South Africa,

but he spent the majority of his time

residing in London and Stockholm.

So I began to wonder,

why would the apartheid regime
need a man

on the other side of the world,
based in Europe?

My name is Madi Gray

and I'm a former ANC activist.

I moved to Sweden in 1974.

Many members had
to leave South Africa

and to build up

anti-apartheid support
in the rest of the world.

We did everything
that needed to be done,

making contacts and talking
to politicians and...

trade unionists
and other people of influence.

The solidarity organisations
were terribly important

in building up support.

That is enough to show

that the people of the world,

they have had enough
of the oppressors.

Places like London and Stockholm

had a lot of power,

which the South African

secret services became aware of.

In Sweden, we had a break-in

at the ANC office.

Files were obviously...
several of them were rifled through.

The ANC office phone was tapped

and then they...

became more radical.

There was the bombing
of the ANC offices

in Penton Street in London.

The b*mb contained
enough expl*sives to k*ll

or cause serious injury.

In Paris, our mission head
there at the time

she was assassinated.

Dulcie September,
she was k*lled in Paris.

She was shot in the back, yeah.

Black nationalist
supporters believe that

their increasingly militant stand
against apartheid has made them

prime targets for the South African
government and its agents.

There was a b*mb
that was hung on the door

of the ANC office in Stockholm,

which exploded, a pretty heavy b*mb.

Clearly,

borders meant nothing to them.

London, Paris, Stockholm.

All targeted.

I could see why South African
operatives were on European soil.

So is this how Stieg
thought Bertil Wedin

was connected
to the regime's operation?

Did he believe Bertil was helping

the apartheid's European hit squads?

I managed to meet and speak
with one of the South Africans

that carried out
the bombing in London:

Vic McPherson.

By following Stieg's archive,
I had entered this world

of spies and agents and murders.

And now I was talking

to a real South African operative.

This was a pivotal moment.

Was Stieg's alleged middleman
in Palme's assassination

actually working
for the apartheid regime?

I had to find out.

Suddenly Stieg Larsson's
theory stands up.

There's a definite link
between South Africa

and Bertil Wedin,
the alleged middleman.

But it didn't stop there.

I managed to get specifics
about who exactly in South Africa

Bertil Wedin had been working with.

I'm thinking, f*cking hell.

Major Craig Williamson,

known as
the apartheid regime's superspy.

A man behind some of its most
brutal and violent acts,

but who had also
spent years undercover

pretending to be part
of the anti-apartheid movement.

I was involved in a w*r.

And in a w*r people get k*lled.

And in a w*r, people get bombed.

Craig Williamson
is probably the most famous

spy that infiltrated...

the African National Congress.

A k*ller of several
anti-apartheid figures,

their families
and even their children.

Testimony by Craig Williamson.

He acknowledges the k*lling

of Ruth First by a letter b*mb.

He also admitted to the k*lling

Jeanette Schoon
and her six-year-old daughter.

I met Craig Williamson.

He's persuasive

and he can turn black into white
and you'll believe him.

I estimate it would
take no longer than a month,

maybe six weeks,

to physically eliminate the ANC.

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

There was a time when he was getting
an award, Craig Williamson,

from the South African regime

for his murderous acts.

And the minister giving him
the award said to him,

"I don't know
if I should shake your hands.

There's so much blood on them."

Then they had a laugh
and went and drank brandy.

We were fighting something that
we believed in, an ideological w*r.

He was a rodent.

A snake.

One of the foulest individuals

that has walked this earth.

Sorry if I'm getting outraged.
I always do

when I speak of people
like that, because,

you know, I feel like vomiting

at the sound of their names.

At the destruction. Wilful.

Evil.

Stieg had identified
this horrendous regime.

They are prepared
to blow bombs in London

to k*ll people that are
threatening their existence.

And one of the top guys,
Craig Williamson,

was definitely working
with Bertil Wedin.

I'm beginning to get the feeling
that I'm coming closer to the truth.

Immediately after the m*rder,
there were several tips

to the police about Wedin,
and they kept coming in.

And despite that,

through the years, the police
had never questioned Bertil Wedin.

But someone had to do it.
Someone had to try.

I couldn't give up now.

Reading through the files,
I saw that Bertil Wedin

and applied to state
in Northern Cyprus,

to a place where he couldn't
be extradited from.

To actually get much further
in this investigation,

I could only see one way.

I had to go to Cyprus.

I need to create a cover story.
I become...

Fredrik Bengtson,
freelance journalist,

working for the Swedish newspaper,
Svenska Dagbladet.

And my pitch to Bertil Wedin will be,

"I want to do a story on your life."

I spent two days before I actually

dared to even try to find him.

I went to the local post office,

looked through the phone book,
and I found two phone numbers to him.

I jotted down the numbers

Back at the hotel,
in my pretty worn-down hotel room,

I sat down...

...and dialled one of the numbers.

And suddenly I was much more nervous.

In Stieg's memo,
it says he's dangerous.

After a few rings,
there is a voice on the other end.

'Hello?'
And I say, 'Good morning.

Am I speaking to Bertil Wedin?'

And he says,
'That depends on who's asking.'

'I'm Fredrik Bengtson.
I'm a freelance journalist.

I would love to do
a story on your life.'

Wedin's response:

"Do you want to talk about
the Palme assassination?"

Wedin's interested.
I arranged to meet him

at the Dome Hotel
the next day at 11:00.

I wanted to film him,
so I went to buy this

tiny video-recording spy pen.

I knew I was taking a chance,
but I was prepared to take that risk.

I had the virus, the Palme virus.

He's exactly what I expected.

He's extremely well-dressed.

He's got a posture
straight as a board,

and his face doesn't show
any emotions.

That is not half a litre.

I told Wedin that I have a dossier

that Stieg Larsson prepared on him,
and he wants to see it.

I deliberately don't show
the dossier to Wedin

until I have asked all the questions.

I needed to know if anything
that Stieg had written about him

was remotely true.

I wanted to know if he had worked for
the South African Security police,

the Swedish secret police SAPO,
or the CIA.

He confirmed several things
from the dossier.

He confirmed that he was working for
the South African security forces,

including Craig Williamson.

He confirmed that he had
been working for the CIA.

He confirmed that he had been working
for the Swedish Security Police.

So suddenly Stieg Larsson's
research was right.

And finally I show it to him.

He reads through the dossier.

The atmosphere starts to change.

And suddenly he seems suspicious.

And suddenly I start
to get really nervous.

I try to end the meeting
as quickly as possible.

I get out of the meeting,
go to my hotel room,

get my belongings,
take a taxi to the airport,

and take the first flight
out of Northern Cyprus.

I can't believe it.

I had questioned Bertil Wedin.

I had done what the Swedish police

hadn't managed to do
in three decades.

Stieg's research
was absolutely right.

Bertil Wedin was a man
with connections

to so many of the groups
that Stieg was investigating.

CIA in the US,

Stay Behind inside Sweden,

and the South African Secret Service

during the reign
of the apartheid regime.

He was also a Swedish right winger

who didn't hide his hate
for Olof Palme,

much like Alf Enerstrom
and Viktor Gunnarsson.

So if South Africa were
to use a top agent,

Craig Williamson, to organise
the assassination of Olof Palme...

...Bertil Wedin would have
made the perfect middleman

to connect them
to others who could help.

But one thing Stieg
was never able to do

was to place either
Bertil Wedin or Craig Williamson

in Stockholm,
near to the scene of the crime

around the time of the m*rder.

Because by February 1986,

Bertil Wedin was supposed
to be in Northern Cyprus,

and Craig Williamson,
he was more than...

8,000 miles away in South Africa...

...or so he claimed.

So here we have Sweden's
Prime Minister,

Olof Palme with Oliver Tambo.

This is taken one week
prior to the m*rder

when there was
a conference in Stockholm.

Oh, I remember very clearly.

I was there in Stockholm.

At the end,
there was resounding applause

that went on
for quite a few minutes.

While people were applauding,
I ran out.

And I went to another entrance.

And I stood there,
expecting my friend to come out.

While I'm standing waiting,

I see someone completely different.

We make eye contact...

...nod "hello" to each other,

and then we went...
..startled,

because this is Craig Williamson.

Williamson shouldn't have
been there by this time.

In Sweden, he's known as The Spy.

I got a very cold feeling.

I really got a very cold feeling.

And of course, a week later,

Olof Palme was assassinated.

When we heard
that the South Africans'

security police
may have been involved,

we say, "Yeah, absolutely."

But of course,
it's one of those things

that probably never will be

proved one way or the other.

Who believes in coincidences?
It was obvious.

I felt I was starting
to see the key players

in Stieg's main theory.

The South Africans are
planning the m*rder

with someone like
possibly Craig Williamson.

But they needed a middleman in Europe

in order to help
facilitate the operation.

His job was to bring
South African interests together

with someone or something else.

But the question was:

who or what?

I knew I would need to find out

if I was going to prove
Stieg's theory.

I was standing at a crossroad
with two choices ahead of me.

I knew that I could go
and maybe solve the Palme m*rder...

...but I would have to do things
that would cross many lines.

Or I can go on
and lead my normal life.

But I felt that I had come so far.

There was no way turning back.

He had been inside my computer.

Somebody needs to tell him
to shut up.

I'm convinced that Stieg
Larsson would have done it.

I have friends...

that can do interesting things.

And then the prosecutor
steps up and says:

"We have solved the m*rder.

We will present the solution."
Now we know the k*ller.

Everybody is waiting
for what the police will say.

Today we will get the truth.

This is the day.

No way. No f*cking way.