Murder of Yvonne Fletcher

In November 2019 Murray said he was still trying to find the murderer; in November 2021 a civil case he brought against Mabrouk, was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Mabrouk was found to be jointly liable for Fletcher's death.

In November 2015 the Metropolitan Police arrested Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a former member of the Gaddafi government and a close ally of Gaddafi who was a key member of the revolutionary committee in control of the embassy on that day; in 2011 he claimed political asylum in the UK. Although initially arrested on charges of money laundering, he was bailed on charges of conspiracy to murder Fletcher. In May 2017 the charges against him were dropped as evidence against him could not be provided in court because of national security concerns.

Following the 2011 Libyan civil war and the collapse of the Gaddafi regime in August that year, it was reported that one of the co-conspirators, Abdulqadir al-Baghdadi, had been killed during in-fighting among Gaddafi loyalists. In June the following year, two police officers flew to Libya to discuss developments in the case. The following month The Sunday Telegraph named Salah Eddin Khalifa, a high-level member of the former regime, as the pro-Gaddafi student who shot Fletcher. Within minutes of the shooting, he had left the embassy via a back door before it was surrounded by police. Khalifa was said to have moved to another north African city following the civil war.

In 2009 Gaddafi was interviewed by Sky News and apologised for the killing of Fletcher. The same year it was established that during trade negotiations between Britain and Libya in 2006, an agreement was reached that Fletcher's killer would not be extradited for trial in the UK. In a letter to Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, the Police Federation said they were "appalled and disgusted" by the decision. A spokesman for the Foreign Office denied that there was a secret deal, and stated that "Libyan law did not allow for the extradition for trial in other countries so a trial in Libya was the only outcome that would reflect our determination to see justice done".

British detectives were able to interview their main suspect for the murder in June 2007, following the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UK and Libya. Detectives spent seven weeks in Libya interviewing both witnesses and suspects. Queenie, Fletcher's mother, described the developments as "promising". That year a senior Canadian lawyer undertook a review of the available evidence for the Crown Prosecution Service. He advised that Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, a junior diplomat in the People's Bureau at the time of the shooting, had been identified by witnesses who had observed him firing a weapon from the embassy window. The report also suggested that there was sufficient evidence for two men, Matouk Mohammed Matouk and Abdulqadir al-Baghdadi, to face charges of conspiracy to murder. Both had escaped out of the garage door of the embassy on the day of the shooting; neither had diplomatic status and could, therefore, face prosecution. The report was not publicly released, but a leaked copy was obtained by The Daily Telegraph in 2009.

On 24 February 2004 the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 reported that Shukri Ghanem, the Libyan prime minister, had claimed his country was not responsible for Fletcher's murder or for the Lockerbie bombing. Ghanem said that Libya had made the admission and paid compensation to bring peace and an end to international sanctions. The following day a statement on Libyan radio said that Ghanem's comment was "inaccurate and regrettable"; the Libyan government offered entry to Libya for the Metropolitan Police to undertake its investigation in Tripoli. Although they were able to undertake some steps during their four-day investigation, they were not allowed to arrest anyone. On their return it was announced that a joint investigation by British police and a Libyan magistrate would undertake a formal investigation under Libyan law.

Two years after Fletcher's murder, the event became a factor in the decision by the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to allow the US bombing of Libya from bases in the UK. In 1999, a warming of diplomatic relations between Britain and Libya led to a statement from the Libyan government admitting culpability in Fletcher's shooting, and the payment of compensation. British police continued their investigation until 2017. Although sufficient evidence existed to prosecute one of the co-conspirators, no charges were brought as some of the evidence could not be raised in court due to national security concerns. As at 2023 no one has been convicted of Fletcher's murder, although in 2021 the High Court of Justice determined that Gaddafi's ally Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk was jointly liable for Fletcher's murder.

In July 1999 the Libyan government publicly accepted responsibility for the murder, agreed to pay compensation of £250,000 to Fletcher's family and agreed to support the investigation into Fletcher's murder. In a statement to the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook announced:

The Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, broadcast in April 1996, posited that the shots were fired from a different building, from an upper floor that had been rented by MI5, and that the shots had been from agents of MI5 or the American CIA, to discredit the Libyan regime. The contents of the programme were raised in question in the House of Commons by Tam Dalyell, and answered by David Maclean, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, who stated that "The programme asks us to believe that WPC Fletcher was murdered by, or with the connivance of, a British or American intelligence officer. If it were not so offensive and obscene, it would be laughable." He concluded that it was the Libyans in the bureau who should co-operate with the murder investigation.

Following a government review into the law surrounding inviolability of diplomatic premises, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987 was introduced. Among other measures, the act allows the government to remove diplomatic status from premises which they consider to be misused.

Although there were rumours that four members of the embassy had been executed on their return to Libya, the reports were not considered reliable by the British government. The government did not try to re-open diplomatic relations with Libya for several years, and interaction between the two governments remained poor. In 1986 Thatcher agreed to the use of Royal Air Force bases by American aircraft involved in the bombing of Libya; she said in the House of Commons that the murder of Fletcher weighed in her decision. In 1991 the warrants issued to two Libyan men for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing further damaged British–Libyan relations. Abdul Fatah Younis, Libya's Minister for Public Security, met Christopher Long, Britain's ambassador to Egypt in 1992. Younis apologised for his country's role in Fletcher's murder, and offered to assist with the extradition of her killers; the offer was not accepted, but led to discussions between the two countries, which were kept secret.

In April and May 1984 six British men working in Libya were rounded up and detained as hostages by a Revolutionary Committee. The Libyans demanded the restoration of diplomatic relations and the release of Libyans arrested on terror offences. Two of the men were freed in September, and in October Terry Waite—special envoy for the Archbishop of Canterbury—visited Libya in an attempt to negotiate the release of the remaining men, the first of his four visits. The hostages were freed on 5 February 1985, after nine months in detention.

Fletcher became the first police officer honoured by the Police Memorial Trust. On 1 February 1985 her memorial was unveiled in St James's Square by Thatcher, in a ceremony attended by the leaders of the main British political parties. During her unveiling speech, Thatcher said:

The murder of Yvonne Fletcher, a Metropolitan Police officer, occurred on 17 April 1984, when she was fatally wounded by a shot fired from the Libyan embassy on St James's Square, London, by an unknown gunman. Fletcher had been deployed to monitor a demonstration against the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and died shortly afterwards. Her death resulted in an eleven-day siege of the embassy, at the end of which those inside were expelled from the country and the United Kingdom severed diplomatic relations with Libya.

Between 1980 and 1984 Gaddafi had ordered the deaths of several exiled opponents of his regime; bombings and shootings, targeted at Libyan dissidents, occurred in Manchester and London. Five Libyans thought to be behind the attacks were deported from the UK. During the anti-Gaddafi protest on 17 April 1984, two gunmen opened fire from the first floor of the embassy with Sterling submachine guns. In addition to the murder of Fletcher, eleven Libyan demonstrators were wounded. The inquest into Fletcher's death reached a verdict that she was "killed by a bullet coming from one of two windows on the west side of the front on the first floor of the Libyan People's Bureau". Following the breaking of diplomatic relations, Libya arrested six British nationals, the last four of whom were released after nine months in captivity.

After several murders of Gaddafi's political opponents in the UK in 1980, there was a decrease in activity until 1983, when the Libyan General People's Congress—the country's legislature—began a campaign against what they saw as the bourgeois habits of staff at several of the People's Bureaux, particularly the office in London. In February 1983 the bureau chief and cultural attaché were recalled to Libya and replaced with a four-man committee of students who had all been involved in revolutionary activities in Libya. Soon after they were appointed, they gave a press conference at which they threatened action against Libyan dissidents. On 10 and 11 March 1984 there were a series of bomb attacks in London and Manchester targeted at critics of the Gaddafi regime. The Libyan government denied being involved, but on 16 March the British government deported five Libyans said to be connected to the attacks.

On 16 April 1984 two students—active opponents of Gaddafi's rule—were executed in public hangings at the University of Tripoli. In response Libyan dissidents in Britain—members of the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF)—decided to stage a demonstration outside the People's Bureau on St James's Square. On 16 April a telex was sent from the People's Bureau in London to Tripoli asking for advice on how to deal with the demonstration. They asked which of three options they should follow: do nothing; drag some dissidents into the bureau to physically assault them; or shoot some of the demonstrators. The answer came back from Gaddafi to open fire on the protestors. The message was intercepted and decrypted by the National Security Agency in the US, who passed the information on to Government Communications Headquarters in the UK, from where it was forwarded to MI5, Britain's counter-intelligence and security agency. They failed to pass on the information to the police or the Home Office.

In April 1984 the film director Michael Winner wrote to The Times to suggest that a memorial be placed in St James's Square "to commemorate not only the horrific death of this brave young girl, but also be a constant reminder to her killers of the feelings of the British people". After receiving sizeable donations, Winner set up the Police Memorial Trust on 3 May to erect memorials to honour British police officers killed in the line of duty.

A cherry tree was planted in St James's Square in memory of Fletcher in 1984, and there is a memorial plaque in Charing Cross Police Station, London. In 1988 John Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury dedicated a stained glass window at St Leonard's Church, Semley, to Fletcher; the window was designed by the artist Henry Haig.

From 1979 there had been no Libyan ambassador appointed to the United Kingdom. A "Revolutionary Committee" was in control of the Libyan embassy in London, located at 5 St James's Square; the embassy was renamed the "People's Bureau". In 1980 Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi—the Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council—saw many exiles from Libya as traitors and had given orders for several of them to be murdered. On his instructions, bombs were planted in London newsagents that sold newspapers critical of Gaddafi. Moussa Koussa was appointed as Secretary of the Libyan People's Bureau in London in 1979. He was expelled from the UK in 1980, after stating in an interview with The Times that the Libyan government planned to murder two opponents of Gaddafi's government living in the UK. The Lord Privy Seal, Sir Ian Gilmour, told the House of Commons that the government wished "to maintain good relations with Libya", but that "we are making it clear that the Libyan authorities must understand what can and cannot be done under the law of the United Kingdom, and that criminal actions in the United Kingdom must cease".

Despite the height restriction, in March 1977 Fletcher was accepted onto the Metropolitan Police 20-week training course. She passed and was placed on the standard two-year probation period with the warrant number 4257; she was posted to Bow Street police station, where she completed her probation and was confirmed as a regular Woman Police Constable (WPC). She was highly regarded by her colleagues, who nicknamed her "Super Fletch", and she became engaged to PC Michael Liddle, who also worked at Bow Street.

The protection of diplomats and their official premises is based on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, an international treaty; it was signed by 141 countries, including the UK and Libya. It was incorporated into UK law in the Diplomatic Privileges Act 1964. Among other measures, the act protects diplomats from prosecution for any crime unless the diplomat's home country waives his right to immunity. A country can declare a diplomat from another state to be persona non grata, and demand that they leave the country, but no other action can be taken against them. Diplomatic premises are also protected from entry by the police or security services, unless given permission by the country's ambassador.

Yvonne Joyce Fletcher was born on 15 June 1958 in the Wiltshire village of Semley, to Michael Fletcher and his wife Queenie (née Troke). Yvonne was the eldest of the couple's four daughters. At the age of three she told her parents that she wanted to join the police. By the time she was eighteen and a half—the minimum entry age into the Metropolitan Police Service—she was 5 feet 2.5 inches (1.59 m) tall, shorter than the 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) required. She applied to several police forces but was turned down on the basis of her height, and considered applying for entry to the Royal Hong Kong Police Force.