Clark Olofsson was with Janne Olsson the author of the robbery of the Kreditbanken in Stockholm in August 1973. He died in a Swedish hospital following a long illness.
The hostage taking of which he was one of the authors in 1973 in Sweden went to posterity by becoming the source of the expression “Stockholm syndrome”. Clark Olofsson died at the age of 78, his family said this Thursday, June 26, June 26.
This man, who was the subject of the Netflix series Clarkdied in a Swedish hospital following a long illness, said his family on a daily basis Dagens etc. Sentenced on multiple times for armed robbery, attempted murder, drug trafficking and assaults, he had spent more than half of his life behind bars.
Four employees taken hostage
He is best known for his role in the robbery of Kreditbanken in the center of the Swedish capital. This episode will nourish the theory of “Stockholm syndrome” according to which the victims of abduction develop a form of affection for their captors.
On August 23, 1973. Janne Olsson burst into the bank, armed with a machine gun and taking four hostage employees while police and snipers were dispatched to surround the building.
Under the influence of narcotics, he demanded that his acolyte Clark Olofsson, then incarcerated for robbery, joins him in this banking establishment. What the Swedish government grants it. Janne Olsson almost instantly calms up to her arrival and a hostage, Kristin Enmark, sees him in him a Savior.
“He had promised me that nothing would happen to me and I decided to believe it,” she wrote in her novel-testimony. “I became Stockholm syndrome”. “I was 23, I was terrified”.
“I fully trust Clark and the thief”
Several times during the hostage -taking, one of the first news items to have been broadcast live, she spoke and defended her captors.
“I fully trust Clark and the thief. I am not at all afraid of them, they did nothing to me. They were very nice,” she said on the second day of his captivity, in a telephone interview with the head of government of the time, Olof Palme.
“Do you know what scares me? The police take the bank by storm,” she said to him during this conversation.
At the end of the sixth day, the police decide to take action, pierces the roof of the bank and sends tear gas. The two criminals surrender and the hostages are released. A sign of their resentment against the authorities, the ex-hostages will choose to remain silent during the lawsuit of their captors.
Since then, experts have debated the validity of “Stockholm syndrome” as a real psychiatric disorder, some seeing it as a defense mechanism in the face of a traumatic situation.
