WPC Fletcher suspect 'killed in vendetta'

 

Richard Hall
Wednesday 31 August 2011 00:00 BST
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One of the suspects in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984 has been killed, rebel officials in Tripoli said yesterday.

Abdulqadir al-Baghdadi, who was an official in the London embassy at the time of the murder, was reportedly shot in the head.

A spokesman for the Transitional National Council (TNC) said al-Baghdadi's death was probably the result of an "inside vendetta" within forces loyal to the ousted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The reports of his death came shortly after it was announced that British police could travel to Libya to investigate the murder of WPC Fletcher, who was shot on duty outside the embassy.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said officers would now assess whether al-Baghdadi's death would affect their investigation. "This is the subject of a Metropolitan Police investigation that is going on and will go on into the future, so I don't want to prejudge immediately what has been announced," Mr Hague told the BBC. "Of course we will want to know a good deal more about what the [TNC] say has happened in this case."

It was reported last week that the report of an investigation for the Crown Prosecution Service includes a witness account claiming a junior diplomat, Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, was seen firing a gun on the day of WPC Fletcher's death.

Al-Baghdadi was one of two named as a co-conspirator.

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