Court Voids Conviction in Palme Slaying : Justice: Swedish appeals panel finds insufficient evidence to link career criminal to prime minister’s death.

An appeals court today threw out the conviction of a 42-year-old career criminal accused of fatally shooting Prime Minister Olof Palme three years ago. Hours later, the defendant was freed from prison.

Judge Birgitta Blom of the Svea Court of Appeals said the court ruled there was not enough evidence to show that Christer Pettersson stalked and killed Palme as the Swedish leader left a movie theater with his wife on Feb. 28, 1986.

“I’m surprised. I never really believed I would be acquitted, although I am innocent,” Pettersson, 42, told the national TT news agency after leaving the Kronoberg Prison with his lawyer and a police escort.

Blom, the president of the appellate court, told Swedish radio the decision to overturn the conviction was unanimous.

The decision is the culmination of a sensational case that authorities have been accused of bungling since its inception. Police for a year pursued a series of vastly different conspiracy theories before prosecuting Pettersson, a drug and alcohol abuser with a long and varied criminal record.

Pettersson was convicted in July even though no motive was established, no weapon was found and no witnesses testified to seeing the Swede fire five shots at the dynamic leader on a darkened street.

The appellate court judgment may be referred to the Swedish Supreme Court. But because the high court usually agrees only to hear cases that could form legal precedent, legal experts have said it probably will not hear Pettersson’s case.

Experts had said if the conviction were to be overturned it would be virtually impossible to find Palme’s killer, since all the witnesses police could find pointed to Pettersson as the man they saw at the crime scene.

Pettersson’s three-week appeal hearing was presided over by a jury of three laymen and four professional jurors. The hearing ended Monday.