Fletcher murder suspect ‘received amnesty letter’
THE prime suspect in the murder of Yvonne Fletcher was given a letter from Tony Blair’s government reassuring him he was not wanted over the killing, his lawyer has told The Daily Telegraph.
Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk was informed he was not a suspect as long ago as 2002 at a time when Britain was forging close relations with Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.
However, a 192-page review of the police evidence seen by The Telegraph repeatedly identifies Mabrouk as one of the suspected ringleaders of a “prearranged plan to cause death”. Mabrouk, who lives in Berkshire, was finally arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder in 2015 but the prosecution was blocked on Tuesday on grounds of “national security”.
The refusal to explain the decision to drop the case yesterday prompted a furious row, with former police chiefs demanding an explanation. The apparent existence of the letter to Mabrouk has echoes of so-called “comfort” letters given to IRA suspects.
Mabrouk, a senior member of the “revolutionary committee” that ran the Libyan embassy at the time of WPC Fletcher’s murder in April 1984, was
expelled from Britain in the aftermath. In 2000 he was allowed back into the UK a year after Mr Blair had restored diplomatic relations with Libya. WPC Fletcher’s mother Queenie Fletcher was paid £250,000 in compensation by the Gaddafi regime as part of the agreement to resume diplomatic ties.
Mabrouk’s barrister Stephen Kamlish QC told The Telegraph: “He [Mabrouk] got a letter from the Foreign Office saying: ‘you are not a suspect’. I believe he received that in about 2002. It is a letter from a senior civil servant.”
Mr Kamlish added: “They [police] used to stop him at the airport and ask him questions. They used to interview him over the shooting of WPC Fletcher and he would give answers and then be allowed on his way. He was reassured by the British state and then suddenly 18 months ago he is arrested.
“If they ever had to disclose [in court] why they changed their position they would have to produce chapter and verse on why they wrote that letter.” The comfort letters were given to IRA suspects from 2000 onwards in a deal made between Mr Blair and Sinn Fein to cement the Good Friday Agreement. One such letter led to the collapse of the trial against John Downey, who was charged with killing four soldiers in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing.
The review of evidence that identified Mabrouk as a suspect was concluded in April 2007. Five years later, after the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime, the Libyan was given asylum in the UK.
The Blair government conducted deals with the Gaddafi regime as part of the process of bringing the terrorist state in from the cold. John Murray, a former Scotland Yard officer who held WPC Fletcher as she lay dying, questioned why the case against Mabrouk had been suddenly dropped. He said: “I am convinced some kind of amnesty was given to Mabrouk. We need to know what is so important to national security that the chief suspect in the murder of a police officer cannot be prosecuted.”
Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner, and Sir Hugh Orde, former head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, echoed the call for the public to be told why the prosecution had not proceeded.
Metropolitan Police sources said Home Office ministers had taken the decision to block evidence from being made public that would have helped bring a prosecution against Mabrouk. Both police and Home Office have declined to say what the evidence is.
The confidential review of WPC Fletcher’s murder conducted by an independent lawyer – and which has been seen by The Telegraph – concluded the shooting was “pre-arranged” and “could not have been conceived or executed without the active participation of members of the ‘committee’”. It identifies Mabrouk as one of its suspected ringleaders.
WPC Fletcher was killed while on duty at an anti-gaddafi protest outside the Libyan embassy. The report says Mabrouk had warned pro-gaddafi students where to stand to avoid being shot by gunmen. It claims he tried to remove safety barriers being put up by police. The report stated: “Mabrouk and Baghdadi advised the students that the demonstrators would be fired upon, directed their positioning outside the Bureau and gave instructions as to what they were to do when the firing stopped.”
Mabrouk, who was head of the Higher Studies and Academic Research Academy in Tripoli from about 2005, was arrested before the protest began for trying to stop police putting up the barriers and was in custody when the shooting started.
Mr Kamlish said police had never presented a “shred of evidence” against his client. “We have never once had any evidence presented to us,” he said.
A source close to Mr Blair said he had no recollection of any letter being sent to Mabrouk. Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time the letter was sent, said: “I have no recollection of this.”