The World - News from April 6, 1989

A 42-year-old man with a long history of violent crime will be tried for the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, Swedish prosecutors said. The suspect, Christer Pettersson, was arrested last Dec. 14 but has consistently denied the charge, telling police that he spent the evening of Palme’s murder in a nearby nightclub. Officials said Pettersson has a string of convictions, including one for stabbing to death a youth with a bayonet in 1971 near the spot where Palme was gunned down on the night of Feb. 28, 1986, as he walked home unguarded from a movie with his wife.