Getty PicturesProbably the most two charismatic criminals concerned within the kidnapping that gave the arena the time period “Stockholm syndrome” has died elderly 78, his circle of relatives has mentioned.
Clark Olofsson – who rose to world notoriety in 1973 following a kidnapping and financial institution theft within the Swedish capital – died following a long sickness, his circle of relatives advised on-line media outlet Dagens ETC.
All over a six-day siege, Olofsson’s hostages started to sympathise with him and his associate, protecting their movements whilst rising extra opposed to the police outdoor.
The incident lends its identify to a theorised mental situation wherein kidnap sufferers broaden affections for his or her captors.
The infamous financial institution siege used to be instigated via any other guy, Jan-Erik Olsson. After seizing 3 girls and a person hostage, he demanded Olofsson – who he had up to now befriended in jail – be dropped at the financial institution from prison.
Swedish government agreed to his call for, and Olofsson entered the financial institution, which used to be surrounded via police.
Years later, in an interview with the Aftonbladet newspaper, he claimed he used to be requested to paintings as an within guy to stay the captives secure in trade for a discounted sentence, however accused officers of now not honouring the settlement.
Olofsson persuaded probably the most hostages, Kristin Enmark, to talk to the Swedish top minister at the telephone on behalf of the robbers.
She begged to be allowed to go away the financial institution in a getaway automotive with the abductors, telling him: “I totally accept as true with Clark and the robber… They have not finished a factor to us.”
She went on: “To the contrary, they have got been really nice… Imagine it or now not however we’ve got had a actually great time right here.”
Over the process a number of telephone calls, Enmark mentioned she feared her captors can be harmed via police and many times defended their movements.
In her memoir, she mentioned of Olofsson: “He promised that he would make certain not anything came about to me and I determined to consider him. I used to be 23 years previous and feared for my lifestyles.”
The hostage state of affairs ended after six days when cops broke in the course of the roof and used tear fuel to subdue the pair.
To begin with, hostages refused to go away their captors over fears they’d be shot via police. The hostages additionally later refused to testify in opposition to Olofsson and Olsson.
Mavens have since debated whether or not Stockholm syndrome is a real psychiatric situation, with some arguing this is a defence mechanism to deal with worrying scenarios.
The time period used to be coined within the aftermath of the siege via Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot to give an explanation for the reputedly irrational affection some captives felt for his or her hostage-takers.
The speculation reached a much wider target audience the next yr when Californian newspaper heiress Patty Hearst used to be abducted via progressive militants.
Talking at the BBC’s Sideways podcast in 2021, Enmark rubbished the idea that of Stockholm syndrome, announcing: “It is a approach of blaming the sufferer. I did what I may just to live to tell the tale.”
Olofsson used to be a repeat wrongdoer and spent a lot of his lifestyles in jail. He used to be launched for the final time in 2018 after serving a sentence for a drug offence in Belgium.
In 2022, actor Invoice Skarsgård portrayed him within the Netflix drama sequence Clark.
