Libyan ‘orchestrated’ WPC Fletcher killing
Saleh Mabrouk accused of organising 1984 gun attack that killed policewoman outside London embassy
A SENIOR aide to Muammar Gaddafi “orchestrated” the shooting that led to the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in 1984, the first trial of a suspect in her notorious murder was told yesterday.
Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk is accused of being “at the heart” of the plot to fire at anti-gaddafi demonstrators, in which WPC Fletcher was killed.
Lawyers acting for her colleague John Murray, who cradled the 25-yearold as she lay dying, said that “the individuals who fired from the first floor window” had done so under the “direction, instruction, inducement, incitement and/or persuasion” of Mabrouk.
The court was shown “distressing” footage of the moment WPC Fletcher fell to the ground after being hit by a bullet fired from the embassy.
A number of retired officers present in court who had served with WPC Fletcher were moved to tears.
Harrowing eyewitness testimony read out described the carnage after at least one gunman began firing from the embassy, killing the police officer and wounding anti-gaddafi protesters.
Outside court, Mr Murray, now 66, said: “It is difficult to listen to [the evidence]. It’s really emotional. That is why I had to walk out for five minutes. When I got here this morning I couldn’t believe we were actually in court after 37-and-a-half years. But this is not about me, it is not about our support, it is about Yvonne today.”
He said he hoped a civil claim might force the Crown Prosecution Service to “reverse its decision” not to bring criminal charges against Mabrouk.
“That ultimately is my aim,” said Mr Murray, adding: “I want to see Mabrouk in a criminal court to face justice. Whether that will happen I don’t know.
“But today is not the end; this is only the beginning.”
Mabrouk is being sued in the High Court for assault and battery by Mr Murray, who suffered “serious psychiatric injuries”. Mr Murray had promised WPC Fletcher as she lay dying that “he would find those responsible”.
The High Court was told that Mabrouk was “one of only three people who were able to organise and direct the shooting” after Gaddafi’s Libyan Revolutionary Committee took control of the embassy. Mr Murray’s lawyers said the “orchestration” of the shooting
‘This, at the time, was described as a statesponsored act of terrorism and nobody has ever been brought to justice for it’
“was entirely consistent” with Mabrouk’s “official functions … under the Gaddafi regime”.
On the morning of the shooting on April 17 1984, Mabrouk had tried to prevent crowd barriers from being erected that might have obscured the line of sight of gunmen inside, the court heard.
It was alleged that Mabrouk told two civilians, who were working for the Metropolitan Police to put up the barriers ahead of an anti-gaddafi protest: “We have guns here today, there is going to be fighting.”
Mabrouk was arrested and taken into custody before the shooting but the High Court was told that “the evidence overwhelmingly establishes that prior to the shooting there was a plan, or ‘common design’, to use extreme violence by gunfire in response to the protest” and that “the defendant was a leading participant in that plan”.
Mabrouk, 63, who now lives in Libya, is being tried in his absence. He was expelled from Britain after WPC Fletcher’s murder but was allowed to return when diplomatic relations between the UK and Libya began to improve in the late 1990s.
Mabrouk, who bought a family home in Reading, Berkshire, was arrested in connection with WPC Fletcher’s murder in 2015 but the inquiry was dropped after a two-year investigation because “key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security”.
Following the collapse of the criminal case, Mr Murray decided to bring a civil case against Mabrouk to honour his promise to his dying colleague.
Phillippa Kaufmann QC, acting for Mr Murray, told the court: “This act, at the time, was described as a state sponsored act of terrorism and nobody has ever been brought to justice for killing Yvonne Fletcher.”