Clark Olofsson, who is one of the two criminals involved in the kidnapping and bank robbery during the year 1973 in Swedish capital, which gave rise to the expression "Stockholm syndrome," has died at the age of 78 following a lengthy illness, the BBC reports quoting his family.

During the six-day siege, Olofsson's hostages not only began to sympathise with him and his accomplice, but defended their actions while growing hostile to the police outside.

The incident lends its name to a theorised psychological condition whereby kidnap victims develop affections for their captor, BBC said.

According to the report, the notorious bank siege was instigated by one 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, a repeated offender who spent much of his life in prison, 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.

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