Sweden never asked Croatia for assistance in the investigation of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, the Croatian ministries of justice and the interior said on Tuesday.
German political magazine Focus said in its latest issue that Palme was assassinated in Stockholm in 1986 by a paid hitman hired by the Yugoslav secret service UDBA in order to discredit the Croatian diaspora. Citing the 2008 testimony of Vinko Sindicic before the German Federal Prosecutor's Office and the Bavarian Criminal Investigation Office, Focus said that the assassin, who at the time had lived in Hamburg, was now 65, living in Zagreb and working with a private security firm. His name was not given.
"According to the information available to the Ministry of Justice, the Kingdom of Sweden never asked for international legal assistance from the judicial authorities of the Republic of Croatia for the criminal prosecution of the perpetrator of that crime," Justice Ministry spokeswoman Vesna Dovranic has said.
The same was confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior and the police. When asked if any action would be taken following the article in Focus, Interior Ministry spokesman Krunoslav Borovec said that the police could not do it only on the basis of an article and speculation in the press.
"The police would need an official request or order for that," Borovec said, adding that the Croatian police had not received any such request or order.
No one at the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office was available for comment.
