Hostage taking at Norrmalmstorg

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The hostage-taking at Norrmalmstorg (in Sweden mainly referred to as the Norrmalmstorg drama , Norrmalmstorgsdramat ) took place from 23 to 28 August 1973 in what was then the credit bank on Norrmalmstorg Square in Stockholm and lasted 131 hours. It was one of the first criminal cases that the Swedish media reported live. As a result, the psychiatrist Nils Bejerot named a survival strategy for the hostages " Stockholm Syndrome ".

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The former credit bank building in Stockholm 2005

The robbery began when Jan Erik "Janne" Olsson, a prisoner on release, went to the credit bank on Norrmalmstorg in central Stockholm. The police were called and one of the two police officers was injured in an exchange of fire.

Olsson took four people hostage (Birgitta Lundblad, Elisabeth Oldgren, Kristin Enmark and Sven Säfström) and demanded that the well-known criminal Clark Olofsson be brought to him from prison. He also demanded three million kroner, bulletproof vests, helmets, two weapons and an escape vehicle. On two occasions Olofsson, Olsson or one of the hostages (Kristin Enmark) telephoned the then Prime Minister Olof Palme .

The bank robbers and their hostages then barricaded themselves in the bank. On August 26th, the police drilled a hole in the roof through which they first inserted a camera. On August 28th, gas was introduced into the bank through this hole, ending the hostage situation. Nobody was harmed.

Condemnation

Janne Olsson was sentenced to ten years in prison and was released after eight years. After the “Drama from Norrmalmsplatz” he was no longer liable to prosecution. He moved to Thailand with his wife and family and now lives in Sweden again.

Clark Olofsson was sentenced to six years in prison, but was later acquitted because his participation in the hostage-taking was not voluntary. However, he had to serve his remaining sentence; several prison breakouts, assaults, and further prison terms followed. In 1991 he renamed himself Daniel Demuynck and took on Belgian nationality. In 2009 he was sentenced to nine years in prison for serious drug offenses. On November 15, 2016, Olofsson was released from Kumlaanstalten Prison in Kumla and flown from Örebro Airport in a chartered plane to Belgium, where he was serving the remainder of his sentence. He was released from prison in late July 2018 and returned to Sweden.

Others

The hostage drama at Norrmalmstorg was filmed in 2003 by Håkan Lindhé under the title Norrmalmstorg (international title The Stockholm Syndrome ) and in 2018 by Robert Budreau under the title Stockholm .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The hostage drama from Norrmalmstorg - The drama day by day
  2. ↑ spiegel.de: The birth of the "Stockholm Syndrome" article from August 30, 2016
  3. ↑ metro.se: Clark Olofsson har lämnat Sverige ( Memento from October 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Article from November 15, 2016 (Swedish)
  4. ↑ aftonbladet.se: Clark Olofson "I Sverige nu ska jag ta semester" article from August 1, 2018 (Swedish)
  5. ↑ Norrmalmstorg in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  6. ↑ Stockholm in the Internet Movie Database (English)