Killer Surveilled Palme Before Shooting

STOCKHOLM, Sweden--The man who killed Prime Minister Olof Palme apparently had him under surveillance for some time before he shot him with a powerful American-made revolver, police said yesterday.

Police Commissioner Hans Holmer told reporters that two bullets recovered at the scene of the late Friday night shooting--a downtown sidewalk--were fashioned from an unusual combination of metals and may have been hand-made.

Police said this could make it harder to track down the source of the bullets.

Sweden's two-day-old caretaker government meanwhile held its first session and discussed arrangements for the funeral of Social Democratic leader Palme, set for March 15.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Loennback said the funeral would be closed to the public, but "many foreign guests" would be invited. Palme, 59, was serving his fourth term as prime minister and was regarded as a top Western European spokesman on disarmament and socialist causes.

Social Minister Gertrud Sigurdsen said there would be no official declaration of national mourning, for which Sweden has no precedent.

Sigurdsen, speaking with Swedish television after the two-hour government session, said there was no need for an official declaration.

"The spontaneous reaction of mourning, how people reacted, was correct," she said.

Palme was shot once in the back while walking with his wife, Lisbet, 55, after they attended a movie. He was pronounced dead at 12:06 a.m. Saturday, less than an hour later, on a hospital operating table. Mrs. Palme was grazed by a bullet and slightly wounded.

Police had said Saturday they believed the assassin fired only one bullet, but on Sunday they reported finding a second bullet. They said one grazed Mrs. Palme and the other may have been the one that killed the prime minister.

Holmer told a news conference the couple decided on the spur of the moment to attend the movie, leading police to believe the assassin must have been keeping the prime minister under surveillance.

"Everything indicates that the perpetrator shadowed the [Palmes] to the movie theater, all the way from their home," Holmer said.

The police commissoner said the Palmes traveled to the cinema by subway. He asked anyone who may have seen a man trailing the couple to come forward.

Holmer said the two lead bullets police found did not match any of the 500 comparison bullets investigators keep on file.

Remarking on the first bullet, before the second was found, he said, "What makes this bullet rare is the combination of metals and the proportion between the metals."

He said it was copper-coated, and that a brass coating was more common.

Later Sunday, Holmer told Swedish televison the bullets were 357-caliber Magnum projectiles, and that police believed they must have been fired from an American-made Smith & Wesson revolver, a powerful handgun.

Police Superintendent Rolf Fredriksson said police had taken three men into custody for questioning by Sunday morning, but had released all three as having nothing to do with the shooting.

An anonymous caller to a news agency in London claimed Saturday that the assassination was carried out by a leftist West German terrorist group, the Holger Meins Commando. Both Swedish and West German officials were evaluating the claim.

One member of the group was killed and five were extradited to West Germany in 1975 after taking hostages at the West German Embassy in Stockholm. One of the five later died of injuries, and the others remain in prison.