“Who Killed Olaf Palme?” (Guardian Podcast 2020) ; “Who Killed Malcolm X?” (Netflix
documentary 2020)
Assassination
is the favorite tactic of security states, entitled business owners and fascists. Our own government ‘security’ forces have
killed a number of high-profile leftist leaders outside the U.S. and also inside the U.S. Presently across the world most of the
targets are left-wing ‘trouble-makers’ - journalists, earth and animal protectors and leftist
politicians. These two documentaries
discuss two significant assassinations against left-wing figures carried out in
Stockholm, Sweden
and New York, U.S.A. on 2/28/1986 and 2/21/1965.
Olof Palme
Olof Palme
was the elected leader of Sweden
from the Social-Democratic Party. (Note to Paul Krugman: the European version
of a ‘democratic socialist’). He was from
the left of the Social-Democratic Party and supported non-alignment, visited Cuba, was tough on the USSR, opposed the U.S.
war in Vietnam and opposed
apartheid in South Africa. This podcast discusses the long hunt for the
real killer of Palme after the original suspect was acquitted. The podcast interviewer is clueless about why anyone
would still care about the assassination.
She interviews mystery writer and journalist Jan Stocklassa who became
obsessed with solving the murder. Palme
was gunned down on the busiest street in Stockholm
while returning from a movie with his wife.
The original police investigation did not secure the scene, missing several clues. It idiotically focused on the Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK) as the source of the trigger-man, though Palme himself was
not an enemy of the PKK.
Subsequent investigations went nowhere.
Through an
offhand comment by a person he was interviewing, Stocklassa discovered that
Steig Larsson, the left-wing Trotskyist author of the “Millennium” trilogy (“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” etc.)
had been investigating the killing for many years until his death. Stocklassa is eventually led to a storage
locker outside Stockholm
by the editor of Expo which contained
20 boxes of material Larsson had accumulated on the Palme assassination.
After
scanning, OCR’ing and reviewing the material Stocklassa became convinced that
Larsson’s theory on who killed Olof Palme was correct. It involves a fascist trigger-man in Sweden, a
go-between Swedish businessman who lived overseas and the South African “State
Security Bureau” (BOSS) who wanted to shut up Palme regarding apartheid. Stocklassa
found a phone that had been left at the scene and claims the Stockholm police are updating their
investigation.
Malcolm X
Malcolm X
was the leader of a breakaway faction of the black Muslim Nation of Islam (NOI). In the last year of his life he became a
standard Muslim and a Pan-African socialist. At the time of his death many
wanted him dead, beginning with the NYC police, the FBI, the U.S. government
and the leadership of the NOI. This
6-part Netflix series tracks the
investigation by another civilian, Abdur-Rahmann Muhammad, a practicing Muslim
who remained astonished that the police had not solved this murder either.
 |
| Audubon Ballroom after the Assassination |
Abdur-Rahmann’s
investigation involved FOI requests to the FBI, reviews of NYPD files,
discussions with people involved in the NOI and the Nation’s military wing, the
Fruit of Islam (FOI), and videos. The
documentary also has interviews with many principals, including Tony Bouza,
head of the police ‘red squad’ in Manhattan (BOSSI). Abdur-Rahmann affirms prior investigations
that two of the three people convicted of the assassination were innocent. The one guilty one, Talmadge Hayer/Hagan, was
injured by one of Malcolm’s bodyguards and caught.
The two innocent men convicted on fuzzy ‘witness’ testimony were sent to
prison for 20+ years. It is not clear
from the documentary who the ‘witnesses’ who implicated them were, as 9 FBI informants were in the
audience at the Audubon Ballroom. Abdur-Rahmann's investigation shows there were a total of 5 shooters - 4
getting away. Those 4 were known to the FBI
but never revealed to the NY prosecutor, a pompous ass who thought he did a
great job in his investigation. The
murder scene was not secured. Another
shoddy police investigation, which is the mark of political assassinations
world-wide.
The police
BOSSI squad surveilled Malcolm for years, spending money on constant tails,
recording and photos. On Bouza’s orders
no protection was offered to Malcolm after the fire-bombing of his house in Queens a week before the assassination. Nor were police in evidence at the Audubon
except in a remote location in the building. Bouza said protection would have been ‘expensive’ so they left Malcolm unguarded. No one looks at how expensive the
surveillance was! Additionally a key bodyguard, Gene Roberts, was a BOSSI police agent. Bouza calls Malcolm a ‘thug’ in the
documentary. J. Edgar Hoover said to “do
something about Malcolm X.” Elijah Muhammad’s son said in NYC that we need to
“cut out his tongue and send it to my father.’
They all wanted Malcolm X dead.
The jailed
shooter Hayer named his 4 other accomplices in an Affidavit and said the other jailed ones were
innocent. The real accomplices all came from Newark, New
Jersey NOI Mosque #25. Abdur-Rahmann identifies the individual who
killed Malcolm with a shotgun as William Bradley, who then changed his name to
Al-Mustaffa Shabazz. There is film of Bradley
outside the Audubon after the assassination. Abdur-Rahmann talks with many
former members of Mosque #25, with Corey Booker, with NJ Lt. Governor Sheila
Oliver and they all play dumb about Shabazz, even though it seems common
knowledge in the Newark Muslim community that he was the killer.
In Manning
Marable’s book on Malcolm X, there was information that the FBI had an agent or
informant or conduit inside Mosque #25.
This is not discussed in the documentary. It is clear the FBI was protecting the 4
other shooters. They had sent poison
letters to the NOI before the split, trying to increase hostility between
Malcolm and ‘the Prophet.’ The FBI always
uses ‘fronts’ – just like the South African State Security Services – to do the
actual killings.
There is no
statute of limitations on murder, but don’t hold your breath for the NY police
or prosecutors to reopen the investigation.
P.S. - A recent comment by SWP comrade Roland Sheppard, who was in the Audubon when Malcolm was shot, reveals that he saw the shotgun shooter Bradley kill Malcolm. When he was called for questioning to the police station, Sheppard also saw him in the bathroom there. The man then went into an office in the police station that was presumably his.
P.P.S. - A written memory by Roland, who was at the Ballroom on the day of the assassination: https://rolandsheppard.com/?page_id=891&fbclid=IwAR3beafVnSt6zj4Dm9Sj44adKC6Ob8nXP1a7YFIYzNUr_3-s6Oah6Ld0abQ
Other prior
reviews on this topic, use blog search box upper left: “Malcolm X – A Life of
Reinvention,” “American Assassination - The Strange Death of Paul Wellstone,” “Orders
to Kill” and “The Plot to Kill King,”
(both by Pepper) “They Killed Our
President,” (Ventura) “The Devil’s
Chessboard,” (Talbot) “On the Trail
of the Assassins,” (Garrison).
Red Frog
February
25, 2020
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