Political assassination

Questions Nag in Sweden 30 Years After Leader’s Assassination

Three decades after Prime Minister Olof Palmewas gunned down on a Stockholm street, his unsolved killing continues to reverberate through Swedish politics and society.

In the prelude to the 30th anniversary of the shooting on Sunday, news organizations are recounting a range of theories about the identity and possible motivation of the killer, including that the crime had been committed by an unemployed Swede with a grudge, or by an American acting on orders from the Pinochet government in Chile. One tabloid published a list of items this week to help younger readers understand the leader “who put Sweden on the world map.”

The continued fascination with Mr. Palme stems in part from the mysteries surrounding his death — he was shot as he and his wife, Lisbet, walked home without bodyguards from a movie on a Friday night — and in part from his legacy as the embodiment of left-leaning values that once seemed to define his country: commitment to a robust welfare state at home and a foreign policy driven by moral considerations...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/world/europe/olof-palme-killing.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Political assassination

Russian Investigation Into Nemtsov Death Ends, 5 Men Charged

Russian investigators have completed their investigation into five men accused of killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov outside the Kremlin last year, paving the way for their trial.

The Investigative Committee in an online statement on Friday said five Chechen men had been charged over the murder, which shocked the world and sent a chill down the spine of Russia's liberal opposition.

The men — Zaur Dadayev, Anzor Gubashev, Shadid Gubashev, Temerlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev — are accused of committing the murder as part of an organized group and illegally purchasing, carrying, transporting and storing firearms. A sixth suspect, Beslan Shavanov, blew himself up while being detained in Chechnya last year, the statement said.

Political assassination

Weak Response to Litvinenko Inquiry Will Not Deter Russia

Even for a thick-skinned president such as Vladimir Putin, and his unapologetic regime, last week's newspapers cannot have been comfortable reading. It is one thing to be a 'distinctive' voice in world politics, but another entirely to be outed as a probable murderer – as the final report of the inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko accuses him of being. The Russian response has been a familiar mixture of bluster, misrepresentation and conspiracy theory.

Fortunately for the Kremlin, the British government would like to move on too. Its outrage is probably genuine, but there has clearly been a decision to do as little as can be got away with. The actual substance of the British response has so far been confined to freezing the assets of the two accused assassins − Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi − and it is surprising this had not been done long ago. All other measures were already in place, in the form of EU-wide sanctions and visa bans in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine. Everything else is just words.