Ebbe Carlsson affair

The Ebbe Carlsson scandal was a major political scandal in Sweden occurring in 1988. The affair came to public knowledge on 1 June 1988, when the evening newspaper Expressen revealed that Ebbe Carlsson, a journalist and publisher and former secretary at the Swedish Government, was carrying out an independent and illegal 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, by then dying with AIDS, being fined for smuggling in 1992. Long before it landed in criminal court, however, an investigation of his role was launched by the constitutional committee of the parliament, its hearings broadcast live on Sveriges Television, the public television service. The matter became embarrassing to the government, appearing to expose an "old boys culture" encompassing people both in the senior ranks of the Social Democratic Party and in the police, and careless handling in highly sensitive police work.

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

Lidbom consulted his old acquaintance Ebbe Carlsson. The two had known each other since the early 1970s when they had both worked at the Department of Justice. Ebbe Carlsson had both knowledge and connections relating to SÄPO, and started up his own investigation, backed by the National Police Commissioner Nils Erik Åhmansson who provided Carlsson with a bodyguard and additional collaborators within SÄPO.

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