The civil case being brought by a retired police officer and funded by the Police Federation against the Libyan man allegedly thought to have murdered Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square, London in April 1984 will open a can of worms for the government next month.
The determined anti-terrorist police who have pursued the perpetrators of this crime for 37 years, gathering evidence in the UK and in Libya are livid that their criminal investigation was dropped by the government in 2017 and are now seeking retribution. On the one side, former government sources have described Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk as an important “agent of influence” who was protected by the British Government when he moved back to Britain in 2009. On the other side, a former British ambassador and the head of MI6 between 1999 and 2004 have claimed that Mabrouk was not a “big fish”.
This was not the only questionable trade in the murky world of the Anglo-Libyan intelligence alliance after 9/11, which involved illegal renditions and billion dollar oil deals. For those who wish to learn more about this, I have, with the help of three British ambassadors, covered the rapprochement after the Lockerbie trial and the atmosphere of distrust within the joint investigative team that worked for a time in Tripoli in my new book, Liberating Libya.
Rupert Wieloch 