The World - News from Aug. 25, 1989

Sweden’s secret service has concluded that the Soviet Union knew in advance of a plot to kill Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was gunned down in Stockholm in 1986, an intelligence source and news reports said. State-owned Swedish Television said intelligence agents arrived at the conclusion based on electronic surveillance of a Soviet diplomat who served in the Swedish capital from 1985 to 1987. “In the main, the factual base of the report is correct,” an intelligence source said. But no one would elaborate on the nature of the information gained. The Soviet Embassy dismissed the report, saying, “It has nothing to do with reality.” Christer Pettersson, a drug addict with a long criminal record, has been convicted of murdering Palme.