While it’s not like Netflix has never faced legal issues before, a full-blown defamation lawsuit is something that’s hard to ignore. According to reports from New Age Entertainment, the streaming service is facing said lawsuit in Sweden over its original series The Unlikely Murderer.
The series attempts to look at the case of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme’s assassination which took place on February 28, 1986. The five-part series is based on a 2018 award-winning book by Thomas Pettersson. In it, Stig Engstrom is depicted shooting Palme before trying to cover up his actions by volunteering to be a witness.
During the original investigation, Engstrom did original present himself as a witness. However, the lawsuit claims that implicating Stig Engstrom as the gunman constitutes “a crystal clear case of defamation.”
While Engstrom did die back in 2000, Swedish law does say you can defame the dead. This is done by potentially doing something that is damaging to close family members or hurts the reputation of someone who is deceased.
While Engstrom’s wife originally wasn’t planning on suing, saying “it would be a nightmare and cost a lot of money” to hire lawyers, she did have many complaints about her portrayal in the series. The show suggesting she knew about her husband’s supposed crime was a “personal attack” according to her.
Unfortunately, we don’t know if Engstrom’s wife filed the case as it is currently classified according to the Chancellor of Justice’s office.
What do you think of this potential lawsuit? Will it just be another one on top of other libel suits Netflix faces like for Making a Murderer? Sound off in the comments!
