Christer Pettersson

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"Lone nut"  Christer Pettersson  link
File:Christer Pettersson.jpg
Born	1947-04-23 Solna, Sweden
Died	2004-09-29 Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
A "lone nut" who was imprisoned for the murder of Olof Palme, but released on appeal in light of the lack of evidence.

In 1988, Christer Pettersson was detained and accused of the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was convicted in 1989, but released on appeal for the lack of evidence.

Childhood and early life

Pettersson grew up in a middle-class family outside of Stockholm. However, Pettersson suffered a head injury from which he would never fully recover. Subsequent to his injury, Petterson began a period of substance abuse which would eventually force him to drop out of school.

In 1970, he stabbed a man to death in central Stockholm during a street brawl, in what the Swedish press dubbed the "bayonet murder". The killing took place just around the corner from what would later be the site of the Palme assassination. After less than two years he was released and continued a life of petty crime, which financed his alcohol and drug abuse.

Accused

Pettersson was accused of Palme's murder after Swedish police after several years had failed to pin it on the Kurdish group PKK He was picked out from a police lineup by Lisbet Palme. The original tip-off leading to the incrimination of Pettersson has been described by some as very dubious. Although the .357-caliber Magnum pistol used to kill Palme was never found, Pettersson was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988.

In 1995, Hans Holmér, the leader of the investigation, revealed that he early realized that Lisbet Palme had not identified Pettersson, but instead one of the witnesses. Holmér had kept quiet about this all these years, including during the 1989 trial and conviction of Pettersson. Thus the only detailed description of the assassin was a wild goose chase.

On 25 april 1995, The Palme commission heard Hans Holmér. One of the experts, Anders , asked:

... Is there anything among these people that you now hypothetically have ideas about that could match the picture of the killer that Lisbeth Palme gives or is there some kind of complication in the equation?

Holmér: yes, if I may first say that I do not believe that Lisbeth Palme has identified the murderer, but that there is a perpetrator at the scene we can agree on that and that that person is described by a number of witnesses in different ways. So there is a picture of the killer, but I don't want to hang it on Lisbeth Palme's statement. (...)

Stening: can you elaborate on this, what you mean by Lisbeth Palme not seeing the killer?

Holmér: Yes, I can do that. I held the first thorough interrogation with Lisbeth Palme on March 25 or something like that. ( ... ) We talked for a long time in peace and quiet about this, and she gave a complete picture of what she had seen. Her description then was that when she goes down, because she had linked arms with Olof, she goes down on the sidewalk and is pulled down like this. Then she looks back to seek help, she has spoken from the very first moment that she wanted to seek help from someone. Then she looks back, and the person she sees, retreats back, so she understands that there she has no help to get. Then she describes the clothes that this person has. She says he has a cover jacket that goes down to the crotch, it's not a waist jacket it's not excessively long, but it goes to the crotch, and he has lighter pants and it's not jeans. If you add her observation to the scenario at the murder scene, the information is extremely consistent with what [Björkman], the witness who was close to the murder, how he was dressed and how he looked. It is thus in no way consistent with how a Christer Pettersson would have looked on the spot, as Christer Pettersson, that kind of person, always wears jeans. She has also never, in all this process that she has been involved in, ever seen any weapon in the hand of this person. So I think, or make that assessment, that the person she has seen, and who eventually in her knowledge in different ways has undergone certain displacements, from the beginning has been [Björkman].

Freed on appeal

However, in 1989 he was freed on appeal in light of the lack of evidence - including the missing murder weapon. Mrs Palme's identification was questioned. Pettersson was awarded about $50,000 in compensation for defamation by the police and for wrongful imprisonment. He quickly spent the money on alcohol and other drugs, but was able to augment his income through selling TV and newspaper interviews.

Confession

In some of those interviews – particularly on TV3 – Pettersson for a lucrative remuneration "admitted" to killing Olof Palme, but in a deniable way.

Coma and death

After a brawl with police, Pettersson was admitted to hospital on 15 September 2004 with a broken arm. On leaving hospital the following day, he fell after an epileptic fit and suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, going into a coma. Pettersson died at Karolinska University Hospital on 29 September 2004.

"The case of Christer Petterson"

In 2017, the Swedish Television investigative program Uppdrag Granskning received material from Christer Pettersson's old basement storage that was reviewed by the film collective Luftslottet. Bags with Pettersson's belongings were the start for a completely new story about the investigation into the murder of Olof Palme. Information emerged that one of the Palme Investigation Group's most acclaimed police officers, Thure Nässén, had manipulated the investigation. During questioning of several addicts, he reminded them of the reward of SEK 50 million (for solving the murder) for testifying against Pettersson. Other police officers in the Palme investigation are also said to have attracted addicts with promises about the reward for them to testify against Pettersson.