Getty ImagesOne of the two charismatic criminals involved in the kidnapping that gave the world the term “Stockholm syndrome” has died aged 78, his family has said.
Clark Olofsson – who rose to global notoriety in 1973 following a kidnapping and bank robbery in the Swedish capital – died following a lengthy illness, his family told online media outlet Dagens ETC.
During a six-day siege, Olofsson’s hostages began to sympathise with him and his accomplice, defending their actions while growing more hostile to the police outside.
The incident lends its name to a theorised psychological condition whereby kidnap victims develop affections for their captors.
The notorious bank siege was instigated by another man, Jan-Erik Olsson. After seizing three women and a man hostage, he demanded Olofsson – who he had previously befriended in prison – be brought to the bank from jail.
Swedish authorities agreed to his demand, and Olofsson entered the bank, which was surrounded by police.
Years later, in an interview with the Aftonbladet newspaper, he claimed he was asked to work as an inside man to keep the captives safe in exchange for a reduced sentence, but accused officials of not honouring the agreement.
Olofsson persuaded one of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, to speak to the Swedish prime minister on the phone on behalf of the robbers.
She begged to be allowed to leave the bank in a getaway car with the kidnappers, telling him: “I fully trust Clark and the robber… They haven’t done a thing to us.”
She went on: “On the contrary, they have been very nice… Believe it or not but we’ve had a really nice time here.”
Over the course of several phone calls, Enmark said she feared her captors would be harmed by police and repeatedly defended their actions.
In her memoir, she said of Olofsson: “He promised that he would make sure nothing happened to me and I decided to believe him. I was 23 years old and feared for my life.”
The hostage situation ended after six days when police officers broke through the roof and used tear gas to subdue the pair.
Initially, hostages refused to leave their captors over fears they would be shot by police. The hostages also later refused to testify against Olofsson and Olsson.
Experts have since debated whether Stockholm syndrome is an actual psychiatric condition, with some arguing it is a defence mechanism to cope with traumatic situations.
The term was coined in the aftermath of the siege by Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot to explain the seemingly irrational affection some captives felt for their hostage-takers.
The theory reached a wider audience the following year when Californian newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by revolutionary militants.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sideways podcast in 2021, Enmark rubbished the concept of Stockholm syndrome, saying: “It’s a way of blaming the victim. I did what I could to survive.”
Olofsson was a repeat offender and spent much of his life in prison. He was released for the last time in 2018 after serving a sentence for a drug offence in Belgium.
In 2022, actor Bill Skarsgård portrayed him in the Netflix drama series Clark.
