LONDON: A pro-Qaddafi fanatic is responsible for the deadly shooting of a police officer during an anti-regime protest that took place outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984, a court has heard.
Officer Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was shot dead while policing a demonstration against Libya’s then-leader Muammar Qaddafi in April 1984.
John Murray, a retired police officer, has brought a civil claim in front of a British court for the symbolic amount of GBP1 ($1.35) for damages against Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, who has denied any role in the shooting.
Murray said he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since the incident, and he is seeking “vindicatory” damages for alleged assault and battery in a bid to bring the circumstances surrounding his friend Fletcher’s death in front of a court.
Phillippa Kaufmann, his barrister, said: “Nobody has ever yet been brought to justice for killing Yvonne Fletcher.”
Mabrouk was arrested in connection with the killing in 2015, but was not charged with a crime despite police saying they could identify those responsible. This was because key evidence could not be released due to national security concerns.
Kaufmann said Fletcher was killed when a shot was fired from a window of the Libyan Embassy during a student protest against the Qaddafi regime’s executions of political prisoners. Kaufmann said bullet casings, firearms residue and guns were later discovered.
She added that the shooting was “pre-planned” by Mabrouk, who she described as having “fanatical” pro-Qaddafi political views at the time.
Mabrouk told a police officer setting up barricades on the day of the shooting that “we have guns here today, there is going to be fighting,” the court was told.
Kaufmann said an anonymous Libyan dissident who infiltrated pro-Qaddafi circles in the UK was once told that Mabrouk and others were instructed by Qaddafi directly to “use the facilities, the guns, all the weapons, the money and the power of the embassy,” and to “teach the British a lesson for letting the opposition work freely in the UK.”
Separately, Mabrouk is said to have told peers “they had to teach a lesson to anti-Qaddafi people,” indicating that they had a number of “targets” in the UK, Kaufmann said.
According to one witness whose name was redacted in court documents, Mabrouk allegedly told protesters where to stand “so they wouldn’t get shot.”
The hearing continues and is expected to last three days.