Sveavägen: where Olof Palme was murdered

Look down. On this pavement, on Friday 28 February 1986 at 23:21, Sweden's prime minister, Olof Palme, was shot dead. No Swedish ruler had been assassinated since King Gustav III in 1792, and the country has never forgotten that night.

1A walk without bodyguards

Palme and his wife, Lisbeth, had been to the Grand cinema, a few hundred metres further up this same avenue, to see «Bröderna Mozart». He had sent his bodyguards home that afternoon, as he often did. They were walking home along the pavement when a man came up behind him and shot him in the back with a revolver. A second shot slightly wounded Lisbeth. The killer fled down the side street and up the steps you can see at the end.

2An unsolved case

It became the largest criminal investigation in Swedish history. In 1989 Christer Pettersson was convicted at first instance and acquitted on appeal. In June 2020 prosecutors named Stig Engström, who had died in 2000, as the likely killer and closed the case. In December 2025 another prosecutor reviewed that decision and concluded the evidence was not enough to name him. The case remains closed, with no one held responsible.

The street the killer ran along, once Tunnelgatan, is now called Olof Palmes gata.

3What to look for

• The bronze plaque in the pavement.
• The steps of Olof Palmes gata, the killer's escape route.
• To the north, about 250 metres away, Adolf Fredrik churchyard, where Palme is buried.