Ex-soldier is named as Palme's assassin

Dirk Coetzee, a self-confessed apartheid police assassin, has named Anthony White, a former soldier from the crack Selous Scouts unit of the Rhodesian army, as the murderer of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme.

Coetzee, once head of the notorious Vlakplaas hit squad, claimed that ex-agents mentioned White in connection with the murder, along with the South African superspy Craig Williamson. Eugene de Kock, a successor of Coetzee's at Vlakplaas, caused a sensation last week when he implicated Williamson in Palme's murder during a plea in mitigation of sentencing for six murders and 83 lesser crimes in a Pretoria court.

De Kock claimed Williamson was involved in a secret intelligence operation called Longreach, targeting opponents of the apartheid regime. Palme, a fierce critic of apartheid, was gunned down in Stockholm Street in February 1986. His murderer was never found.

Coetzee claimed that Longreach bought a farm called Daisy, near Vlakplaas, and that it was from Daisy that the Palme murder was planned. White is now reported to be living in Beira, Mozambique. Williamson denied any involvement this weekend. But Sweden denies his claim that he was investigated in connection with the Palme murder and cleared.