Ebbe Carlsson affair
The Ebbe Carlsson affair was a major Swedish political scandal in 1988. It began when the Expressen newspaper revealed on June 1, 1988, that Ebbe Carlsson, a journalist and former government secretary, was running his own, illegal investigation into the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme with secret support from Justice Minister Anna-Greta Leijon. Leijon resigned a week later. The case also led to a parliamentary investigation, with hearings broadcast on television, that exposed an “old boys’ culture” at high levels of the Social Democratic Party and the police and sloppy handling of police work.
Earlier, in late 1987, Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson asked ambassador Carl Lidbom to look into how Sweden’s security police, SÄPO, worked, after the Bergling spy case and Palme’s murder remained unsolved. Lidbom brought in Ebbe Carlsson, who had knowledge of SÄPO, and Carlsson began his own inquiry with protection from the police chief Nils Erik Åhmansson. Carlsson claimed Palme was killed by the PKK, a theory tied to earlier investigations led by Hans Holmér.
On March 17, 1988, Lidbom briefed Leijon about Carlsson’s theories, and she met with him a few days later. On March 28, the prime minister was told to decide by June 7 whether to back Carlsson’s theories. On May 2, Carlsson asked Leijon for a letter of recommendation for a trip to England to talk with people he believed knew about a Damascus meeting. Leijon wrote the letter and gave it to Carlsson two days later, keeping a copy in her safe without proper registration.
Carlsson later met the chief prosecutor Jörgen Almblad, who was furious that he had not been informed about Carlsson’s role and worried about Carlsson having access to top-secret information.
On May 30 and June 1, Expressen called Leijon to ask about Carlsson. She denied giving the letter, and the letter was then taken from the safe, registered, and later classified.
The affair damaged the government, and Leijon resigned. In 1992, Carlsson, who was then dying of AIDS, was fined for smuggling.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:10 (CET).