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Ocalan says ex-wife ordered killing of Olof Palme: press

   ANKARA, Feb 27 (AFP) - Captured Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah 
Ocalan has accused his ex-wife of ordering the 1986 assassination of
Sweden's late prime minister Olof Palme, the Turkish daily Sabah
said Saturday, quoting the rebel leader.
   "The assassination of Olof Palme was ordered by my ex-wife 
Kesire according to information I received after the attack," Ocalan
told magistrates during questioning at the Imrali island prison in
the Sea of Marmara where he is being held, the paper said.
   "I gave no order for the assassination of Olof Palme. After the 
attack, I found out that he had been killed by men close to my
ex-wife," he said.
   Palme was gunned down by an unidentified assailant while walking 
down a busy street in central Stockholm with his wife, after leaving
a cinema on February 28, 1986.
   Turkish press reports in 1985 said Kesire had fallen out with 
Ocalan over the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which he headed, and
its armed struggle for independence. After their divorce, she left
the organisation.
   With a small group of Ocalan opponents she founded the 
PKK-Vejine, but little is known about the group today.
   Ocalan was captured by Turkish commandos in Nairobi and taken to 
Ankara on February 16, where he faces the death penalty for treason
and separatism.
   Despite hundreds of leads and years of investigations, the Palme 
murder has never been resolved.
   Ocalan has previously said that he has information about the 
Palme killing and he would be prepared to speak to Swedish police.
   In an interview with the Swedish evening paper Aftonbladet in 
December, Ocalan said the murder was committed "in order to
incriminate the PKK."
   "It was a way for conservative groups to turn world opinion 
against the search for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish
situation," he said.
   "Palme was a true friend of the Kurdish people and never spoke 
of the Kurdish liberation struggle as being terrorism," Ocalan
said.
   The Swedish police long investigated the so-called "PKK lead",  
one of the principle lines of inquiry in the Palme investigation,
but without success.
   Sweden refused the PKK leader political asylum 10 years ago. 
   The Kurdish lead was originally based on phone conversations 
monitored by police keeping PKK activities in Sweden under
surveillance before the Palme murder. These indicated that the PKK
planned to commit a high-profile murder in Scandinavia.
   A year later, in January 1987, Swedish police arrested some 20 
Kurds, but had to release them for lack of evidence.
   The Kurdish lead was reopened in April last year, when former 
Kurdish rebel commander Semdin Sakik, captured in Iraq by Turkish
forces, told the Sabah newspaper he knew the PKK was behind the
Palme assasination.
   The allegation was formally denounced by Swedish representatives 
of the Kurdish Liberation Front (ERNK, political branch of PKK).
    

 

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