One of many two charismatic criminals concerned within the kidnapping that gave the world the time period “Stockholm syndrome” has died aged 78, his household has mentioned.
Clark Oloffson – who rose to world notoriety in 1973 following a kidnapping and financial institution theft within the Swedish capital – died following a prolonged sickness, his household advised on-line media outlet Dagens ETC.
Throughout a six-day siege, Oloffson’s hostages started to sympathise with him and his confederate, defending their actions whereas rising extra hostile to the police exterior.
The incident lends its identify to a theorised psychological situation whereby kidnap victims develop affections for his or her captors.
The infamous financial institution siege was instigated by one other man, Jan-Erik Olsson. After seizing three girls and a person hostage, he demanded Oloffson – who he had beforehand befriended in jail – be delivered to the financial institution from jail.
Swedish authorities agreed to his demand, and Oloffson entered the financial institution, which was surrounded by police.
Years later, in an interview with the Aftonbladet newspaper, he claimed he was requested to work as an inside man to maintain the captives secure in change for a lowered sentence, however accused officers of not honouring the settlement.
Olofsson persuaded one of many hostages, Kristin Enmark, to talk to the Swedish prime minister on the cellphone on behalf of the robbers.
She begged to be allowed to depart the financial institution in a getaway automotive with the abductors, telling him: “I absolutely belief Clark and the robber… They have not performed a factor to us.”
She went on: “Quite the opposite, they’ve been very good… Imagine it or not however we have had a very nice time right here.”
Over the course of a number of cellphone calls, Enmark mentioned she feared her captors can be harmed by police and repeatedly defended their actions.
In her memoir, she mentioned of Oloffson: “He promised that he would make sure that nothing occurred to me and I made a decision to imagine him. I used to be 23 years outdated and feared for my life.”
The hostage scenario ended after six days when cops broke by way of the roof and used tear gasoline to subdue the pair.
Initially, hostages refused to depart their captors over fears they’d be shot by police. The hostages additionally later refused to testify towards Oloffson and Olsson.
Specialists have since debated whether or not Stockholm syndrome is an precise psychiatric situation, with some arguing it’s a defence mechanism to deal with traumatic conditions.
The time period was coined within the aftermath of the siege by Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot to elucidate the seemingly irrational affection some captives felt for his or her hostage-takers.
The idea reached a wider viewers the next yr when Californian newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by revolutionary militants.
Talking on the BBC’s Sideways podcast in 2021, Enmark rubbished the idea of Stockholm syndrome, saying: “It is a method of blaming the sufferer. I did what I may to outlive.”
Olofsson was a repeat offender and spent a lot of his life in jail. He was 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 collection Clark.
