The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson's Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin

by Jan Stocklassa

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. —Hanlon’s razor

How could people in the 1980s, who appeared to be otherwise normal, participate in gatherings and organizations where fascist and racist views were expressed? The same people kept cropping up in political parties that seemed completely on the up-and-up, like the Moderates or the Liberals, and then gradually the boundaries were erased between the right wing, right-wing extremists, and even outright Nazis.

Stieg’s own mappings from the last year showed what others had warned of: there were direct and indirect ties between Swedish right-wing extremists, Swedish parliamentarians, and people in the top levels of the Swedish economy.

“But there’s one thing that makes it even more complicated. This buddy of Anders Larsson’s that Haukka mentions, the parliamentary stenographer, I mean . . .” “Bengt Henningsson?” “Yes. Bengt says that he’s been keeping an eye on Larsson for Säpo for several years. And that it didn’t have anything to do with SSI’s surveillance.” “That doesn’t make any sense to me,” Stieg said. “That would mean that the guy who dropped off the warning before the assassination was being tailed by both military counterintelligence and Säpo . . .” “And that neither of them acted to prevent the assassination,” Hermansson supplied.

The way the Swedish system worked, lay judges were politically appointed and were not trained lawyers. The city court’s two qualified members had voted not to convict. That meant that the person who had been convicted of murdering a politician had, in fact, been convicted by people who were politically appointed. It was as if only carpenters would form the jury in the case of a murdered carpenter. Lay judges were obviously emotionally engaged in finding and sentencing the murderer. The members of the court with backgrounds in law, who were experienced in considering evidence, on the other hand, had voted to acquit.

Although maybe the Palme assassination was Sweden’s own Rorschach test. Instead of symmetrical ink splotches, you looked at the Palme assassination, and what you saw revealed more about you as a person than about the truth behind the assassination. Do you favor the alcoholic, Christer Pettersson, the right-wing extremists within the police, or the South African security services? You see what you want to see.

Hanlon’s razor says: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.