Sweden Offers $70,000 for Clues to Killer

STOCKHOLM — Police Tuesday offered a $70,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Prime Minister Olof Palme’s assassin but admitted that they have achieved no major breakthrough in the case.

The reward, the first ever offered by government officials in Sweden, was announced at a news conference by Stockholm Police Commissioner Hans Holmer. The 59-year-old prime minister was shot to death by an assassin last Friday night in central Stockholm as he walked home from a movie with his wife, Lisbeth.

For the first time since the assassination, police disclosed that they have strong evidence to indicate that the killer was assisted by at least one accomplice. Holmer said that a police officer who responded to an emergency call ran after the assassin and was almost close enough to catch sight of him.

“We almost caught the killer but didn’t make it,” Holmer said. “We were very close, but we didn’t know how close.”

Call From a Taxi Driver

The call came from a taxi driver about a quarter of a mile from the murder scene who saw a man turn into a street running, then jump into the passenger side of a car, which immediately sped away. The taxi driver reportedly has given police a description of the car, including part of its license number.

Police learned of Palme’s murder moments earlier in an radio call from another taxi driver who witnessed the shooting.

Why the head of a small neutral country would be killed in what seems to have been such a professional manner continues to baffle all Swedes, including, apparently, the authorities. But in a country where the only political violence in nearly two centuries has been among immigrants, most Swedes believe that the killer is a foreigner.

Holmer reported that since the killing, more than 600 people have been questioned, 100 of them intensively. He said evidence so far indicates that the killing was most likely the work of an organized group.

“We’re dealing with professionals,” he said. ‘I don’t know who or how many persons. That we don’t know yet. It is a very difficult case. It will take time to solve it.”

International Assistance

He said he has sought international police assistance, including help from U.S. experts on ballistics. He said he had also been in contact with the West German Central Criminal Bureau.

Telephone calls claiming that a West German terrorist organization, the Red Army Faction, had carried out the assassination have been received by a London news agency and a Swedish diplomat in Bonn a few hours after the killing. However, neither call appeared to contain convincing proof.

Last March, a caller identifying himself as a member of the same group claimed responsibility for placing a bomb in a crowded West German department store, injuring several people. But the person who eventually confessed to the crime had no record and no connection with the terrorist group.

The Red Army Faction is said to have plotted the kidnaping of the present Swedish labor minister, Anna-Greta Leitjon, in 1977 as revenge for her decision to deport a member of its group after a 1975 attack on the West German Embassy here. The terrorist died of wounds a few days later.

Leitjon was in charge of immigration at the time.

The failure of police to solve Palme’s killing quickly has led to a tide of local press criticism and charges of incompetence. These reports noted that members of the public, not police, found the copper-tipped .357-magnum bullets used in the assassination, and when Holmer appealed for help in tracing their origin, it turned out that most large sporting goods stores in the city carry them.

The press also questioned the police response in efforts to seal off possible escape routes for the assassin.

Holmer rejected the media criticism and appealed for cooperation from the public.