Ebbe Carlsson
Swedish publisher and SAP-adjacent insider whose private 1987–1988 investigation into the assassination of Olof Palme, conducted with the apparent knowledge and support of Justice Minister Anna-Greta Leijon, was exposed in May 1988 when illegal eavesdropping equipment intended for his operation was found at Helsingborg customs — forcing Leijon's resignation on 6 June 1988 in what became the canonical closing chapter of the post-Palme political-trust crisis.
Ebbe Carlsson was a Swedish publisher — Bonnier-affiliated, with editorial roles at Norstedts and a long unofficial relationship with the Social Democratic Justice Ministers Carl Lidbom in the 1970s and Anna-Greta Leijon in the 1980s. His political peculiarity was his lateral access: he was not a politician, not a civil servant, and not a journalist, but moved between SAP, the Bonnier publishing house and the Swedish security services with an ease that no formal role explained.
In 1987–1988 Carlsson conducted a private investigation into the 1986 assassination of Olof Palme, pursuing a “Kurdish PKK” theory of the case that was favoured at the time by some Säpo figures. The operation involved London-based intelligence contacts and a former Säpo deputy chief, and was conducted with the apparent knowledge and support of Justice Minister Anna-Greta Leijon. The affair broke on 26 May 1988 when a customs officer at Helsingborg discovered illegal eavesdropping equipment intended for the operation in a courier’s luggage.
The subsequent investigation by Expressen and SVT, and the parliamentary constitutional committee (KU) inquiry that followed, exposed the network. Leijon resigned on 6 June 1988. PM Ingvar Carlsson‘s government survived. The affair became canonical in Swedish journalism as the closing chapter of the post-Palme political-trust crisis — the moment when the public learned that even within the Justice Ministry the line between informal initiative and state authorisation had become unclear. Ebbe Carlsson died of HIV/AIDS complications in April 1992.