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- WORLD, Page 33World NotesSWEDENThe Verdict Is a Question
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- The decision left many Swedes more dissatisfied than ever
- with the bungled investigation of the February 1986 murder of
- Prime Minister Olof Palme. Last week a panel of judges found
- Carl Gustaf Christer Pettersson, 42, a former mental patient
- with a long criminal record, guilty of the slaying and sentenced
- him to life in prison. The court split 6 to 2, with six lay
- judges convinced that Pettersson gunned down Palme. But the two
- professional judges on the panel voted for acquittal.
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- Throughout the five-week trial, Pettersson, who had
- previously been convicted of more than 60 offenses, including
- the 1970 bayonet slaying of a man near the Palme murder scene,
- maintained his innocence. The key witness against him was
- Palme's widow Lisbet, who told the court she was absolutely
- certain that Pettersson was the man she saw when she turned
- around after her husband fell. An appeals court will decide in
- September if there was sufficient evidence to convict
- Pettersson.
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