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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Ten years ago today, an assassin killed Prime Minister Olof Palme and escaped into the night. Authorities have been in pursuit ever since.
On the anniversary, Swedes are stopping to remember their leader, gunned down Feb. 28, 1986, while he and his wife walked home unguarded from a movie theater in downtown Stockholm.
Flowers, solemn moments and speeches about his life and politics are planned for this evening. For weeks, Swedish news media have delivered a stream of interviews and analyses about Palme's ideas.
Failure to nail a killer has spawned a cottage industry in conspiracy theories that blame everybody from Kurdish militants to right-wing Swedish police officers. The theories gain credence thanks to Palme himself, whose firebrand rhetoric made him both a hero and villain.
Some wonder whether Palme's crusades - he opposed the Vietnam War, apartheid, the nuclear arms race, and championed the welfare state, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela of South Africa - still have relevance.
''No,'' his onetime confidant Harry Schein has said. ''We are in a totally different political situation than we were during Olof Palme's time. ... He was a great politician, for his time.''
About a dozen detectives - soon to be reduced to two to three - still work full-time on the assassination, weeding out the last tips from an estimated 17,000 investigated over the years.
They haven't even found the murder weapon.
''You have to be realistic after 10 years,'' the chief detective, Hans Olvebro, said about plans to scale back the inquiry.
The detectives now spend about half their time digging for evidence on certain suspects. In 1989, a petty criminal named Christer Pettersson, then 41, was tried for the crime based largely on the testimony of Palme's widow, Lisbeth, who identified him from a lineup.
But a court acquitted the man, calling the evidence circumstantial and ordering the state to give him 300,000 kronor ($55,000 at the time) to compensate for the inconvenience.
Since then, few hard leads have emerged. The government last year started an investigation of the investigation, to find out if the police have done all they could. And now the nation is growing weary of the cost, estimated at more than $44 million.
A Gallup poll of 1,000 Swedes in mid-January found 85 percent saying they believe the culprit never will be convicted, and 52 percent saying the case should be closed. No margin of error was given.
For the anniversary, the ruling Social Democratic Party - led by Palme until his death - has published a book and a CD-ROM with his speeches and interviews with politicians and family members.
It also commissioned a new bust of Palme and is selling miniature bronze replicas for $750 each.