Anders Leopold Elmquist (18/08/1937; Eringsboda, Sweden – 01/08/2021; Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife) was a Swedish journalist and author who wrote under the pseudonym Anders Leopold. He was known for his investigative journalism and reporting on corruption, organized crime, and other social issues in Sweden.
Leopold started his career as a journalist in the 1960s, working for various newspapers and media outlets in Sweden, including Nerikes Allehanda, Aftonbladet and Expressen. He gained prominence in the 1980s with his reporting on corruption and organized crime, and in particular, the assassination of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister, who was murdered in 1986. Leopold maintained that one of those involved in the execution was a right-wing extremist named Victor Gunnarsson, and that he was part of an international conspiracy involving the security services Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (Chile), the CIA and South Africa’s secret police. The reason would be, among other things, to stop criticism of the military junta in Chile and the apartheid regime in South Africa, as well as to prevent a disclosure of the Iran-Contras affair. Palme was vocal in his opposition to apartheid. Gunnarsson remained a suspect for some time but was never charged due to lack of evidence. He subsequently emigrated to the USA and in 1993 was murdered in North Carolina.
Leopold published several books on the subject and produced a number of documentaries. Throughout his career he received numerous awards and honours for his contributions to journalism, including the Cavling Prize, Denmark’s most prestigious journalism award, which he won twice. He was also recognized internationally, receiving the Freedom of the Press award from the International Press Institute in 1989.
After meeting Fredrich Jürgenson, the two became friends and he devoted much of the remainder of his life to investigating Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) culminating in his book on Jürgenson My friend on the other side. Friedel’s Conversations with the Dead: The Fascinating Story of Friedrich Jürgenson, Pioneer of EVP by Anabela Cardoso and Anders Leopold, his first book in English on Jürgenson, was published posthumously in 2023.
