US EditionProsecutor finds no reason to reopen case of unsolved 1986 murder of Swedish PM Olof Palme
Swedish prosecutors say evidence is insufficient to reopen the 1986 assassination case of Prime Minister Olof Palme despite new DNA testing suggestions.
- On Thursday, Director of Prosecution Lennart Gune said there was insufficient evidence against the man named as the chief suspect in the February 28, 1986 killing of Olof Palme, former prime minister in Stockholm, Sweden.
- A journalist asked in September the Swedish Prosecution Authority to review the closure and raised the possibility of new DNA analysis on Olof Palme's coat.
- Prosecutors noted legal constraints on reopening the probe, stating 'it is not legally possible to reopen the investigation as long as the closure decision is based on the suspect being deceased,' citing Swedish legal limits.
- Gune said, `Based on the investigation material that is now available, it is not possible to prove who the perpetrator is and further investigation cannot be assumed to change the evidence in a decisive way,' indicating the case remains unresolved.
- Chief prosecutor Krister Petersson closed the case in 2020 after naming Stig Engstrom, who died in 2000, as the chief suspect and said he could not charge a deceased suspect.
39 Articles
39 Articles
The investigation into the murder of the Social Democratic Prime Minister in 1986 is again classified as "unsolved", following a decision by the Attorney General, who considers that the evidence against the alleged perpetrator of the murder is not sufficient.
In 1983, the then Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme died from gunfire. Decades later, authorities introduced a long since deceased as a suspected murderer.
Prosecutor finds no reason to reopen case of unsolved 1986 murder of Swedish PM Olof Palme
There is no reason to reopen an investigation into the unsolved 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a prosecutor said on Thursday, after finding there was insufficient evidence against a man who had been regarded as the chief suspect.
In 1986, Sweden's former head of government Olof Palme was murdered and a suspected perpetrator was named in 2020. However, the prosecutor's office is now expressing doubts about his perpetratorship.
The journalist wanted to find out if new DNA technology could find new evidence in the coat. The Chief Prosecutor refused to reopen the investigation.
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