RUTHFULLY YOURS

Yvonne Fletcher lies wounded in the street, tended to by fellow police officers. She would die in hospital a little over an hour after this photograph was taken, killed by a bullet fired from the Libyan embassy.

Now 27 years to the day since she was murdered – on April 17th 1984 – the Libyan dissident who took this historic picture has spoken of the events leading up to the shooting and its bloody aftermath.

Mohamed Maklouf, who has been living in exile most of his adult life in fear of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, has decided to release the images as testament to the brutalities committed by Gaddafi – not just in his own country, but on British streets.

Last month, he made his first trip back to Libya after 36 years for an emotional reunion with his mother in rebel-held Benghazi. On his return to London, he was moved to make public this remarkable set of photographs taken by him more than a quarter of a century ago.

Last night Mr Maklouf spoke of his disgust that Gaddafi remains in power while his former henchman Moussa Koussa, accused of involvement in WPc Fletcher’s murder, has been given sanctuary in the UK.

The day WPc Fletcher was shot, at the age of just 25, remains clear in his memory.

Mr Maklouf remembers first seeing the policewoman when he and his fellow activists arrived by coach at the Libyan embassy in St James’s Square for a protest against Gaddafi-sponsored murders and executions.

“She was greeting us as we got off the bus,” said Mr Maklouf, “She said ‘good morning, what a beautiful day’. Five minutes later she was shot.

“I was in the front of the demonstration and WPc Fletcher was smiling at us. I just heard this groan and I saw her going down, falling to the ground. It was like in slow motion. It remains vivid 27 years on.

“It isn’t easy to forget; you don’t forget an innocent person being killed in front of you.”

With tears in his eyes, he added: “Her beautiful smile had been wiped out by a crazy gunman.”

From the first floor window, the killer had begun firing a machine gun, later identified as a standard issue Libyan army weapon, without warning and indiscriminately at the crowd some distance away. Eleven Libyan protesters were also wounded.

WPc Fletcher had been facing the 70-odd demonstrators, her back to the embassy. The bullet penetrated her stomach, causing massive internal injuries. Her fiance, who had also been policing the event, was at her side when she died.

“It was chaos. There was very rapid fire. WPc Fletcher was the first person to go down but people all around me were collapsing. I was very, very lucky. Police were screaming at us to get back but I just carried on taking photographs as I walked backwards. I just kept looking through the lens, thinking I must document this. I was the only photographer there.”

It took about five minutes for all the demonstrators, including the wounded, to fully retreat. Mr Maklouf, who was 25 at the time, was the last to leave the square, edging back from the embassy, rounding a corner and finding sanctuary in the portico of a townhouse in Charles II Street. All the time taking photographs – there are 24 on the black and white roll – he captured these dramatic scenes.

The sequence of pictures begins with the demonstration itself. It had started peacefully. Opponents of the Gaddafi regime, wearing masks to protect their identities, held up placards, proclaiming “Defeat to the sadistic Libyan regime” and “Gaddafi poisons children”, a reference to claims the Libyan leader had tried to poison the families of dissidents living in London.

A counter demonsatration of pro-Gaddafi supporters had been organised by the embassy. They had been warned to stand ato the side of the embassy to avoid being shot. A message from Tripoli, intercepted by MI5, had authorised the use of guns.

Mr Maklouf took the picture of WPc Fletcher on the ground and then others of his friends, fleeing the scene and being treated afterwards.

One shows his friend Mahmoud, a black hood covering his face, being laid out onto a stretcher, before being rushed to hospital in an ambulance. Mahmoud would spend several weeks in hospital recovering from his leg injuries.

Another shows a man called Adel, a scarf wrapped round his head, being dragged from the square by two police officers. He was the last of the protesters, along with Mr Maklouf, to be cleared from the area.

Those uninjured were bundled back on to a coach and taken to Paddington Green police station, where they were questioned and searched.

The roll of film was taken out of Mr Maklouf’s camera and held by police as part of the criminal investigation.

The negatives were returned to him a week later and the now famous photograph of WPc Fletcher released for the world to see the crime sanctioned by Gaddafi.

The rest of the photos were put in storage by Mr Maklouf. He dug them out last week, prompted by events now taking place in Libya. He lived in exile for 36 years, earning a living as a journalist and film-maker, before returning last month to Benghazi to see his mother for the first time in all that time.

Back in London last week, he expressed astonishment that Moussa Koussa, the former foreign minister and intelligence chief in Gaddafi’s regime, had been welcomed by the British government following his defection.

“What kind of Government would allow a man like this to live here? What deals are the British making with this murderer?” said Mr Maklouf, “He is responsible for the embassy shooting as well as for the Lockerbie bombing.

“Moussa Koussa is a killer and a murderer. He should be brought to trial either in England, Libya or an international court. He organised assassinations in London. He was responsible for the shooting at this demonstration and the killing of a police woman.”

Mr Koussa ran the embassy, self-styled at the time as the Libyan People’s Bureau, until 1980 when he was ejected from Britain for alleged remarks that appeared to give sanction to state-sponsored assassination of Libyan dissidents on UK soil.

The extent of Mr Koussa’s involvement – if any – in the shooting that led to WPc Fletcher’s death is not clear. For 11 days after her murder, the embassy was laid siege by police, the impasse ending when the occupants, claiming diplomatic immunity, were allowed to leave and subsequently expelled from the country. The murder weapon is thought to have been smuggled out in a diplomatic bag.

Diplomatic relations with Libya were ended, only to resume in 1999 when Gaddafi handed over two suspects wanted for the Lockerbie bombing. In the same year, WPc Fletcher’s family, including her mother Queenie, were given £250,000 compensation by the Gaddafi regime.

Nobody has ever been brought to justice for Yvonne Fletcher’s murder. That despite the fact that in 2007, police and the Crown Prosecution Service were told by an independent prosecutor there was sufficient evidence to charge two Libyans, now senior officials, over the killing.

For Mr Maklouf, there remains disbelief that Gaddafi had been allowed to come in from the cold. “Gaddafi was a mad dog in the 70s and 80s and suddenly he was Britain’s friend; a friend of Tony Blair. He is a stupid man and a hypocrite,” he said.

“Nobody listened to us. An embassy is supposed to be a reflection of the culture of the people and then somebody goes with a gun and kills an innocent police woman.

“If they can do this in England, imagine what they have been doing in Libya all these years?”