A video depicting the assassination of a Swedish prime minister contains a “veiled threat” to the politicians currently in power in the country, a terrorism expert has said.
The AI-generated animation using Lego characters to portray the murder of Olof Palme, who was assassinated in Stockholm 40 years ago, was posted on the social media account of Iran's embassy in Sweden.
The video is the latest in a series of pro-Iranian animation, much of which is created by a group calling itself Explosive Media and which has attracted hundreds of millions of views since the US and Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28.
Mr Palme was shot dead in a street in Sweden's capital in February 1986 while returning home from the cinema with his wife.
Nobody has been convicted of the crime, though prosecutors said Stig Engstrom, who killed himself in 2000, was responsible for the murder.
The assassination has fuelled a number of conspiracy theories, with one featuring the involvement of South African intelligence and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The post on X begins with the message: “In memory of Olof Palme; the assassinated Prime Minister of Sweden who stood against apartheid and nuclear weapons. The world still suffers from both.”
The animation is accompanied by a voice-over, which ends with the words: “When the powerful fall in the street, who pulls the trigger?” and a different character falling through the snow.
Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism researcher at the Swedish Defence University, told The National: “It’s quite suggestive of a threat to Swedish politicians.”
He said: “If you look at … the last five seconds, when it says ‘who pulled the trigger?’ and someone disappears under the snow. Why did they produce this? When I saw this I thought this is like a veiled threat.”
Mr Ranstorp said the video, which followed one about Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat murdered by Jewish extremists in 1948, “is part and parcel of a concerted disinformation effort by all the Iranian embassies”.
“The Iranian ambassador should be pulled up to the Foreign Ministry and asked 'why are you producing this propaganda directed against the Swedish audience?'” Mr Ranstorp said.
The assassination of Mr Palme shook Sweden’s self-image, as the country’s leaders at the time were not usually accompanied by bodyguards, in the belief they would not be targeted in a nation then renowned for low crime and political stability.
Nima Gholam Ali Pour, an Iranian-born politician who represents the Sweden Democrats party in the national parliament, called the video “totally bizarre”.
He told The National the Iranians were making light of a national trauma. “You don't really know what the message is, except that there should be distrust against institutions in Sweden,” he said.
Sweden’s security services have increasingly seen Iran as a threat. In 2024 they revealed Tehran had been recruiting local teenage criminals to carry out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets, such as the Israeli embassy in Stockholm.
In particular, Rawa Majid, the founder of the Foxtrot criminal network, has been identified as a key figure in Iran’s efforts, which led to him being placed under UK and US sanction.
A number of Swedish citizens of Iranian origin have been executed in Iran, most recently in March. Another dual citizen, Ahmadreza Djalali, was sentenced to death in 2017 and remains in Evin Prison in Tehran.
