Kadhafi aide found liable for 1984 death of UK police officer

A retired police officer on Tuesday won a legal bid to hold an ex-aide of former Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi jointly liable for killing a colleague in London 37 years ago.

Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was shot dead as she patrolled a small, peaceful demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square on April 17, 1984.

The shots were fired from an embassy window.

The killing prompted London to cut ties with Tripoli until 1999 and has been a major obstacle in relations between the two countries, alongside the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Fletcher’s former colleague John Murray, 66, brought a civil claim for a nominal £1 against Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a former education minister and leader in Kadhafi’s revolutionary committees.

Murray’s lawyers accused Mabrouk, who has denied wrongdoing, of being “jointly liable” for the fatal shooting, even though he did not fire any shots.

They argued successfully at a three-day trial that he was “instrumental” in the “orchestration” of a plan to use violence at the embassy demonstration.

In his ruling, judge Martin Spencer said “those responsible for the shooting of Yvonne Fletcher also bear liability”.

“I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that there existed a common design to respond to the planned anti-Kadhafi protest by using violence.”

Spencer said the evidence indicated that Mabrouk was an “active participant” in a “common design to fire upon the demonstrators”.

He added: “Mr Murray has succeeded in showing that the defendant Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk is jointly liable with those who carried out the shooting of Yvonne Fletcher, for the battery inflicted upon her.”

The judge said there appeared “little doubt” that Kadhafi “orchestrated and sanctioned” the gunmen’s actions, as he “could not tolerate dissent or disagreement”.

Murray said after the ruling: “Today we have finally achieved justice for Yvonne.”

British police in 2015 arrested a man in his 50s on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, and he was named by newspapers as Mabrouk.

He had been deported shortly after the shooting but the order was lifted in 2000 and he returned to Britain as an asylum seeker in 2011 as civil war broke out in Libya following Kadhafi’s ouster and death.

London’s Metropolitan Police force, on which Fletcher served, said in 2017 that although “enough material to identify those responsible” had been identified, it could not be presented in court.

“The key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security” and there was “insufficient evidence to charge” Mabrouk.