The Swedish bank robber who held four people hostage for six days in a 1973 bank siege that led to the term “Stockholm Syndrome” being coined has died aged 78.
Clark Olofsson, one of Sweden’s most notorious repeat offenders, died in hospital after a lengthy illness, his family told news site Dagens ETC.
He had a slew of convictions including robbery, attempted murder, drug dealing and assault, and spent more than half of his life in prison.
He was best known for his role in the August 23, 1973 siege of Kreditbanken in central Stockholm.
Another robber, Janne Olsson, had stormed the bank waving a submachine gun, taking three women and one man hostage as police swarmed the building.
Olsson was agitated and demanded that Olofsson, who was in prison for bank robbery at the time, be brought to the bank.
Sweden’s government agreed.
One of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, later wrote that when Olofsson arrived, she saw him as her saviour.
“He promised that he would make sure nothing happened to me and I decided to believe him,” she wrote.
‘I’m not the least bit afraid’
She spoke on the phone to authorities several times during the hostage drama, shocking the world when she defended her captors.
“I’m not the least bit afraid of Clark and the other guy, I’m afraid of the police. Do you understand? I trust them completely,” she told the prime minister at the time, Olof Palme, in one phone call.
“Believe it or not but we’ve had a really nice time here,” she said, adding that they were “telling stories” and “playing checkers”.
“You know what I’m afraid of? That the police will do something to us, storm the bank or something,” she said.
The crisis ended on the sixth day when police sprayed tear gas inside the bank, forcing Olsson and Olofsson to surrender and freeing the hostages.
The hostages later refused to testify against their captors.
Experts have since debated whether “Stockholm Syndrome” is an actual psychiatric condition.
Some argue it is instead a defence mechanism to cope with a traumatic situation.