Who killed Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher.

[Malcolm Ward]

Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was murdered in St James Square in the heart of London.It was a anti Gaddafi peaceful protest.But a machine gun was fired from the Libyans Peoples Bureau which supposedly killed her.But was another shot fired from elsewhere.

Libyan In 1984, in London, Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan people’s Bureau.

In April 1996, Britain's Channel Four programme Dispatches revealed that Fletcher had been murdered by elements of British and American intelligence.

"The purpose of the slaying ... was to 'shape' public opinion and, importantly, pre-empt Parliamentary indignation for the later bombing of Tripoli by British based US warplanes.

The official inquest concluded that WPC Fletcher was killed by someone firing a 9mm calibre automatic weapon from a lower floor in the Libyan embassy.

But this verdict has been disputed by a number of experts, including the British Army's senior ballistics officer Lieutenant Colonel George Styles and Home Office pathologist Hugh Thomas.

On 24 June 1997, Tam Dalyell MP questioned Prime Minister Tony Blair about the death of Yvonne Fletcher. Dalyell made particular reference to a Channel 4 documentary about the murder:

"With the agreement of Queenie Fletcher, her mother, I raised with the Home Office the three remarkable programmes that were made by Fulcrum, and their producer, Richard Bellfield, called Murder In St. James's.

"Television speculation is one thing, but this was rather more than that, because on film was George Styles, the senior ballistics officer in the British Army, who said that, as a ballistics expert, he believed that the WPC could not have been killed from the second floor of the Libyan embassy, as was suggested.

"Also on film was my friend, Hugh Thomas, who talked about the angles at which bullets could enter bodies, and the position of those bodies.

"Hugh Thomas was, for years, the consultant surgeon of the Royal Victoria hospital in Belfast, and I suspect he knows more about bullets entering bodies than anybody else in Britain.

"Above that was Professor Bernard Knight, who, on and off, has been the Home Office pathologist for 25 years.

"When Bernard Knight gives evidence on film that the official explanation could not be, it is time for an investigation."

Examination of the scientific evidence showed that the shot which killed Yvonne Fletcher could only have come from from Enserch House.

This building had links to the CIA.

Source;

http://aangirfan.blo...our-spooks.html

Other Sources:

http://vialls.homest...nefletcher.html

People's Bureau

[William Kelly]

The British are taking this up with the new Libyan government and the Libyans are cooperating.

BK

[Malcolm Ward]

If MI5 are involved,will the truth come out.Its a bit like saying,the FBI and CIA investigated JFK,s assassination.It is known,that intelligence knew there would be shooting on the day Yvonne Fletcher was killed.The intelligence community did not pass this information to the Police,although American Intelligence intercepted a message from Tripoli saying that shootings would happen.It is claimed the message got lost.Tam Dalyell,a Labour MP asked questions in the House of Commons.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)

My locus in the tragic murder of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher is simply that, for reasons deployed in seven Adjournment debates and elsewhere, I do not believe the official view on Lockerbie, or that the accusations against Libya provide the whole story. Like Dr. Jim Swire, Pamela Dix, Rev. John Mosey, Martin Cadman and others of the Lockerbie relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher want the truth.

Very frequently, a Government are justified in dismissing a television programme or a press article as being without foundation—I use polite terminology. But as I watched Fulcrum Production's "Dispatches" programme on Channel 4 on Wednesday, 10 April, I came to the conclusion that casual dismissal simply will not do. I deploy two sets of reasons for that belief.

First, anyone who watches the programme must acknowledge the care and detail with which those responsible for that production have put it together.

Secondly, the people appearing are of a calibre and relevant experience that cannot merely be brushed aside. It is not on to imply that the professional opinion on ballistics of Lieutenant Colonel George Styles is of no value. He had 26 years in the British Army and is one its leading weapons experts.

It is preposterous to imply that the professional opinion of Hugh Thomas on the anatomy of gunshot injuries does not require a serious and detailed response. He is a former chief consultant surgeon to the British Army in Northern Ireland and has dealt with hundreds of firearms injuries in Ulster. Thomas is, quite simply, one of the leading gunshot experts in the world.

The Minister knows that Professor Bernard Knight has been one of the Home Department's most trusted and eminent pathologists for many years. He was entrusted with the investigation at Cromwell street, and much else.

I gave notice to Detective Superintendent Emerton of Scotland Yard, and he to the Home Office, that I would ask the following questions.

First, was Yvonne Fletcher shot from a different direction from that which we have hitherto been given to believe?

Secondly, there is a stark difference between what the pathologist, Dr. Ian West, wrote in the post mortem report and what he said at the inquest. Why is there that discrepancy? In his post mortem report, for example, he suggested that Yvonne Fletcher had been shot from the upper floors of an adjacent building—an angle of wound that he measured as between 60 and 70 deg. At the inquest, however, Dr. West stated: Her injuries were entirely consistent with a shot fired from the first floor window of the Embassy, an angle of 15 degrees. Why was there this extraordinary change of view? Hugh Thomas said that the post mortem, the first view, was correct. Thirdly, is Hugh Thomas right in saying: The one bullet that caused the fatal injury certainly came from the higher building"? Fourthly, Dr. West expressed the view that WPC Fletcher must have been turning when she was shot. Turning with the natural curve of her back would greatly 209 reduce the angle of the bullet wound. Professor Bernard Knight dismisses that analysis. I ask the Government: is Dr. West or Professor Knight right?

Fifthly, is Lieutenant Colonel Styles right in saying that WPC Fletcher's injuries could not have been caused by a Sterling machine-gun fired from the embassy's first floor because of the range and the tumbling nature of the bullet?

Sixthly, why was the video recorded by one of the Libyan demonstrators not presented in evidence at the inquest, even though the police had a copy of it? It was a student video that recorded far more than either of the professional recordings made on 17 April 1984, and it undermined the analysis of the police ballistics experts in terms of the number of bullets fired and the weapons used.

Seventhly, have the police interviewed those members of the intelligence services who witnessed the exchange of signals between the Libyan People's Bureau and Tripoli, which indicated that there would be a shooting incident? Was that information passed on to the police?

Eighthly, can the House of Commons be told what Ministers said to those members of the Security Service who indulged in what we all know was a smear campaign against the then Home Secretary, Sir Leon Brittan?

This matter goes beyond the simply personal concerns of those involved. I appreciate the presence in the Chamber of the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley). This matter concerns our relations with the Arab world and our relations with Libya.

I have had seven Adjournment debates on this subject already, which, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would not wish me to rehearse. I shall just draw to the House's attention a statement in The Independent, on 16 February, by the right hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Needham), a former trade Minister. He wrote: Case one involved a large order for Bedford lorries, which were to be used by the Libyan army for civilian purposes—mainly ambulances and fire engines, or so they claimed. The trucks were standard issue and not adapted in any way for military purposes. On this order depended the future of the company. I came to the conclusion that on balance, the company's licence should be supported. I was strongly opposed by the Foreign Office—as much on political grounds, post Lockerbie and post-Scott, as military ones. The Ministry of Defence, as far as I recall, stayed aloof. I lost. The company shut down and its factory now lies empty. Fifteen hundred men and women have had to find new work. So much for our relations with Libya.

The case refers to a central moral argument. It is not my style to involve such matters in party controversy and therefore it is a pleasure that the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), whose record in searching for the truth is impeccable, should have an opportunity to put his point of view.

1.39 pm

§

Sir Teddy Taylor

(Southend, East)

In the few minutes available to me I am delighted to associate myself entirely with the specific questions raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and to pay tribute to the tireless campaign that he has conducted to seek out the truth of the tragic death of Yvonne Fletcher. He has not been engaged in any crusade for any purpose other than to seek

210

to clarify the facts in the interests of Yvonne Fletcher's delightful mother, her family, her friends and our basic democracy.

I am also delighted that the Minister of State, Home Office is on the Front Bench because I can say to him—I hope not to his embarrassment—that, as a difficult Back Bencher, I regard him as one of the straight and honourable Ministers. I hope that this afternoon, if not later, he will disregard any advice that he has from any other Ministry about what is in the national interest and realise that his obligation is to search for the truth.

My interest in the case started some years ago when I had an invitation, which I took up, to resolve what I thought was the issue of that tragic death, which resulted in Colonel Gaddafi being abused for offering £250,000 of what was described as blood money in respect of the murder. When I pointed out to Ministers at the Foreign Office that, far from offering, he was simply responding to a request that I made after long negotiations with officials at the Foreign Office, which was confirmed in writing by one of its senior officials, I was advised that the person concerned had left public service and could not be traced.

As a result of what I describe as active research I was able to go back to the Secretary of State and point out that the official was still employed in the Czechoslovak embassy doing a Czechoslovak language course. I therefore received what I will always treasure to my last day here—a letter from a Foreign Office Minister apologising for the misunderstanding.

I hope that the Minister will accept that the "Dispatches" programme presented evidence that it was simply not possible for the shots to have been fired from the three-storey Libyan embassy and that full details were given of what was happening in six-storey buildings nearby.

As the hon. Member for Linlithgow has said, the issue simply cannot be ignored and the matter is vital to the family and to the people of Libya, who have suffered a great deal from the sanctions that stem from that particular tragedy. I hope that my right hon. Friend will realise, as I believe he does in his heart, that truth is the secret weapon of politics. There is no other way in which we can proceed that is fair to the family and friends affected by that tragic murder without recognising that the crucial thing is to try to establish the facts and tell the people. I fully appreciate that that is not an easy task for a Minister.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and I have clear views about what happened. At the end of the day, going for the truth, a full inquiry and a clear statement of the facts is a much stronger weapon than any other devious arrangement.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Linlithgow for raising the issue. I hope that my right hon. Friend will once again show the House of Commons that he is one of those who is interested in truth and clarity and nothing else.

1.43 pm

§

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Maclean)

The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has followed his usual courteous approach by giving me notice that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) intended to raise certain

211

allegations about the murder in 1984 of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, which were aired in a recent Channel 4 "Dispatches" programme. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow for his customary courtesy for letting my officials know that he had sent a list of specific questions to the police.

I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East that I do not have advice from any other Ministry on what is in the national interest. Any information that I can offer the House is based on police information, and it is straight and honest.

Let me say at once that Yvonne Fletcher's murder was a terrible crime; as the then Home Secretary said in his statement to the House about the incident, it was a barbaric outrage. I, too, want to express my deep sympathy to Yvonne Fletcher's family. I hope that the television programme's reopening of the issues surrounding her death has not caused them more unnecessary, undue distress than they have already suffered.

I entirely share, as do the Government, the police and I am sure all in this House, hon. Members' concern that, if at all possible, the person or persons responsible for WPC Fletcher's murder should finally be brought to justice. But the investigation of that crime, which alone can lead to such a desirable outcome, is a matter for the police, not for the Government, this House, or a television company. It is quite right of course that the hon. Member for Linlithgow has passed to the police his questions about this case. I should say to the hon. Member and to my hon. Friend that if it was not for the fact that I respect the issues raised by hon. Members in the House, and treat their views seriously, I would regard the television programme simply as the preposterous trash that it is. There has been an extensive police investigation into the murder. Sadly, it has not proved—

§

Mr. Dalyell

"Preposterous trash"? But those are the views of Bernard Knight, who is the most distinguished Home Office pathologist. Is Bernard Knight to be described as preposterous trash?

§

Mr. Maclean

No, I said that the programme was preposterous trash, as I shall seek demonstrate.

I am not attacking any of the so-called experts, but they did not examine the body at the time, give evidence at the coroner's inquest and have that evidence tested by others. Merely giving opinions on a reconstruction by a television company is not the best way to try to get to the truth of what happened at the time.

It has not proved possible to charge anyone with the murder of WPC Fletcher. The investigation therefore remains open, and the Metropolitan police will, of course, consider any new evidence presented to them. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East has also been in touch with the Metropolitan police about some of the matters raised in the programme. I know that the Metropolitan police are aware of the programme and are reviewing its contents as part of their continuing investigation, including giving specific consideration to question No. 6 tabled by the hon. Member for Linlithgow about why the video shown on the programme was not presented in evidence at the inquest.

As for the assertions made in the programme about the activities of the intelligence agencies, including the allegations that the murderer of WPC Fletcher was privy

212

to information available to intelligence services here and in the USA; that "rogue elements" in those services had a motive to kill WPC Fletcher, an allegation on which the hon. Gentleman based his final question, No. 8, of which he gave me notice; and that members of the intelligence agencies attempted to smear the then Home Secretary, Sir Leon Brittan, the House will be well aware that it is not the Government's usual practice to comment on speculation, however bizarre or preposterous, about the activities of the intelligence services. Nor can I help the hon. Gentleman in respect of his two questions Nos 7 and 8, which relate to intelligence matters.

Having said that, there are several points of which I should like to remind the House.' At 10 am on 17 April 1984, a peaceable demonstration was taking place outside the Libyan People's Bureau in St James's square. The police were fully in control and there were no problems of public order. Without any warning, a number of shots were fired from an automatic weapon from a window on the first floor of the bureau. Twelve people were injured with bullet wounds and were taken to hospital, including WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who died shortly afterwards. WPC Fletcher was not the only one to be shot in that frenzied, cowardly attack, but she was the only one to die.

After the shooting took place, the Government immediately asked the Libyan authorities to instruct those inside the bureau to leave the building and to allow it to be searched for weapons and explosives. The Libyan Government refused repeatedly to agree to that request or to co-operate in the criminal investigation into the death of WPC Fletcher. For that reason, we broke off diplomatic relations with Libya, with effect from 22 April.

The programme was wrong to suggest that the incident transformed what had previously been a benign Government attitude to Libya. Our relations with Libya had been particularly bad since 1980. Following Colonel Gaddafi's announcement that all Libyan nationals should return to Libya or be "dealt with", two Libyan dissidents were murdered here and two children of a third were poisoned. The newly accredited secretary-general of the Libyan People's Bureau stated publicly his approval of the killing of Libyan dissidents in the United Kingdom and was required by the then Foreign Secretary to leave the country forthwith. An attempt was made to burn down the British embassy in Tripoli.

On 26 April 1984, the Libyans removed their diplomatic bags from the bureau building. The following day, the 30 people in the bureau left the building. The "Dispatches" programme failed to mention that those people were taken, accompanied by diplomatic observers, to the Civil Service College at Sunningdale, where they were interviewed by the police. They left for Libya that evening.

On 30 April, the police entered the former bureau building. In the course of searching it, they discovered several handguns and a quantity of ammunition. Firearms residue was found on the carpet below the window from which the weapon was believed to have been fired on 17 April and a spent cartridge case of the same calibre as that weapon was found in the same room. Elsewhere in the building, the police found accessories for sub-machine guns of the same calibre.

At that stage, the police view was that there was not sufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution for the murder of WPC Fletcher against any individual, and that they

213

would not be able to obtain evidence to sustain a prosecution without the co-operation of those who were in the Libyan People's Bureau. None the less, the police were of the view that it was likely that the murder was committed by one of two people who were in the bureau. Both of them possessed diplomatic immunity and, therefore, could not be prosecuted under English law even if the necessary evidence had been available.

It was claimed in the "Dispatches" programme—solely on the basis of a reading of the post mortem report and the proceedings of the coroner's court—that the angle of entry and the terminal velocity of the bullet that killed WPC Fletcher were such that it could not have been fired from the first or any floor of the Libyan People's Bureau. The programme cast aspersions on the pathologist involved in the case, Dr. Ian West, who I stress was working purely for the coroner and not for the police; and on the coroner, who is of course an independent judicial officer. The analysis of a soundtrack, which was said to reveal a loud shot that we are asked simultaneously to believe was fired from a silenced weapon, was also said to support that assertion.

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. WPC Fletcher's murder horrified all of us in this country because no one ever imagined that, in a quiet London street in broad daylight, someone would be so mad as to fire a machine gun from an embassy window. The programme asks us to believe that there are assassins in the British or American secret service who are willing to murder a British police officer; that it was some sort of plot that their bosses did not know about, but everyone covered up; and the most preposterous suggestion of all is that that assassin anticipated, or had some knowledge, that some maniac in the Libyan embassy would fire a machine gun into the crowd and, at that point, could simultaneously fire a shot that would kill WPC Fletcher.

If people want to sit in the bowels of some television production company and invent those feverish fantasies, that is up to them. However, I do not know what hurt they have caused the parents of WPC Fletcher and all her other relatives who must be suffering the anguish of not seeing her killers brought to justice. Clearly, the programme makers do not care. However, I do care that the memory of that brave officer should not be sullied by preposterous suggestions that she was murdered by other servants of ours or of a friendly country as part of a treacherous plot. It is a fact that a hail of bullets came out of that embassy window and injured 12 ordinary people. One of those people was a British citizen in uniform, WPC Yvonne Fletcher, who died while on duty protecting the people and the community she served.

§

Mr. Dalyell

It is all very well for the Minister to use words such as "feverish" and "preposterous", but what about the considered view of Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, who is an expert in ballistics? Do those adjectives apply to his professional views?

§

Mr. Maclean

My adjectives apply to a programme that second-guessed the evidence and conducted reconstructions. It asked people to comment on evidence

214

that was prepared by a professional pathologist and presented to an independent coroner during a full inquest. It was a re-reading of history and no doubt a dozen experts could make of the evidence what they will.

The problem with experts looking at evidence 12 years after the event is that none of their opinions has been tested in court before a jury. Dr. West's opinions, his analysis of the body and his painstaking reconstruction of the bullet's angle of entry into the body and through the tunic were presented at the inquest. His evidence was tested and the jury believed the evidence that was presented to it. It is preposterous that a programme should do a reconstruction and invite any number of experts—who did not examine the body and who were not present at the time of the incident—to offer opinions and comments when they do not have the full facts.

Several of the questions that the hon. Gentleman asked me arise from the assertions in the programme: was Yvonne Fletcher shot from a direction different from that which we have hitherto understood? Is Professor Thomas, who was interviewed on the programme, correct in his belief that the bullet must have been fired from the top of a high building? Is Dr. West right that WPC Fletcher must have been turning when she was shot, or is Professor Knight, who was also interviewed on the programme, right to dismiss that analysis? Is Lieutenant Colonel Styles right that WPC Fletcher's injuries could not have been caused by a Sterling machine gun fired from the embassy's first floor?

My response to all those questions is as follows. I understand that Dr. Ian West—the pathologist who worked on the case—in co-operation with eminent scientists from the Metropolitan police forensic science laboratory, carried out detailed experimental work following the murder on the question of the angle of entry of the fatal bullet, including a reconstruction using the tunic that WPC Fletcher had been wearing. The question was explored at the coroner's inquest before a jury, and the evidence given convinced that jury that WPC Fletcher was unlawfully killed by a bullet coming from one of two windows on the west side at the front of the first floor of the bureau.

In response to the hon. Gentleman's second question, it is simply not the case that Dr. West changed his mind between writing his post mortem report and giving evidence at the inquest. The programme's claim that he did is based on a misreading of the papers and an insufficient understanding of a number of the scientific issues involved—including the fact that the angle from the horizontal of the entry of a bullet into a body lying flat is different from the angle if the body were erect and different again, as was demonstrated experimentally, if the body were turning and the shoulders dropping. I understand that it also remains the view of the police, on the basis of substantial physical evidence collected immediately after the shooting, that the shots that killed Yvonne Fletcher were fired from within the Libyan People's Bureau.

If the hon. Member for Linlithgow and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East believe that the inquest was in some way flawed or unsatisfactory, there is provision for the matter to be reviewed by the courts. Under section 13 of the

Coroners Act 1988

, an application may be made to the High Court, with the consent of the Attorney-General, for a fresh inquest to be ordered. All coroner's decisions are subject to judicial review.

215

However, I stress that it is not open to politicians, such as the Home Secretary or any other Minister, to comment on the decisions taken by coroners in individual cases.

As I have said, I share the concern expressed by the hon. member for Linlithgow and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East that the full truth of the matter should be established and that the person or persons responsible for WPC Yvonne Fletcher's murder should finally be brought to justice. I believe that the best way of making progress towards that end is for the Libyan nationals who were in the bureau at the time of the shooting to co-operate fully at last with the investigation into the murder. The Libyan Government, whose

216

representatives were not among those who spoke to the programme, should accept responsibility for the actions of their officials.

§ It being Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

§ Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

Source:

http://hansard.millb...yvonne-fletcher

Other interesting sources.

http://s13.invisionfree.com/julyseventh/ar/t774.htm

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/group_13.htm

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/terminal_velocity.htm

http://vialls.homestead.com/yvonnefletcher.html

Edited June 28, 2012 by Malcolm Ward

[Malcolm Ward]

Some other interesting information.

Two professional television cameras were filming at the time, one located outside the Bureau at 5 St James and the other outside 8 St James. In ballistics terms the footage from those two cameras provides most of the hard scientific proof needed to prove the shots could not have been fired by the Libyans, and confirms the firing platform was located in a building on the northern side of the square, well to the west of the Libyan Bureau. Forensic details from Yvonne Fletcher's post mortem provide the balance of irrefutable scientific evidence.

Early that day crowd barriers were placed round the central garden pavements of St James Square, and also to the west of the Libyan Bureau in front of numbers 7 and 8. The anti-Quadhafi demonstrators were ushered behind the barriers in the inner square at 10.15 am and a senior police officer then personally positioned twenty police constables, including WPC Fletcher, in an arc facing the inner square. Significantly, although there were more than 50 police personnel present in the Square, Yvonne Fletcher, the shortest constable in the Metropolitan Police Force, was the only female officer present.

As the constable with the lightest body weight facing multiple demonstrators of considerable bulk, every rule in the book says the senior officer should have positioned Yvonne well out on one of the flanks, but he did not do so. Yvonne Fletcher was deliberately positioned on the apex of the curve in front of the Libyan Bureau, in front of the television cameras, and directly in the chosen line of fire from 8 St James Square.

Just four minutes later at 10.19 am a 3-shot burst of automatic fire rang out. Yvonne Fletcher was hit by the first bullet in the upper right back. Bullet entry angle was 60 degrees from the horizontal, with an exit wound visible below the left rib cage. If the entry and exit wounds are lined up with her known height, and her televised position when the shots were fired, the line of fire backtracks precisely to the top floor of 8 St James Square. No other building in St James Square is high enough or at the correct azimuth to facilitate the sixty degree shot. At the coronial inquest into her death, creative media deception "proved" that Yvonne Fletcher was killed by a shot fired from the first floor of the Libyan Bureau on her left-hand side, at only 15 degrees from the horizontal!

The continuous television video sound track records the crowd chanting, followed by a bullet strike on a human body, followed in turn by the sounds of three equally-spaced very fast shots. By far the most important point proved by the sound is that the camera microphone located outside the Libyan Bureau recorded the `whump' of the bullet striking Yvonne Fletcher before it recorded the sound of the three shots being fired. What this means in layman terms is that the bullet which killed her was supersonic, and was fired from a position more distant from the camera's microphone than Yvonne Fletcher herself. This analysis alone proves the shots could not have been fired from the Libyan Bureau under any circumstances.

If the shots were fired from the Libyan Bureau they would have crossed over the camera microphone before the first bullet hit Yvonne Fletcher, i.e. the microphone would have recorded a different sound sequence: first a single shot, then the bullet impact, then shots two and three - whether the bullets were supersonic or not. There is absolutely no trace of this latter sequence on the audio, which also destroys the claim made at the coronial inquest that two 9-mm Sterling sub-machine guns fired at the same time from the Libyan Bureau. The professional television audio proves in absolute scientific terms that no shots were fired from the Bureau, nor from any other building on the eastern side of St James Square that day.

The camera positioned outside the Bureau panned left and right, showing demonstrators massed along the pavement on the inner square. When the shots were fired, this camera zoomed in and filmed the demonstrators falling sideways to the ground towards the camera's left. So their physical response was to shrapnel and noise from the opposite direction: exactly the line of fire from 8 St James. The massive kinetic energy and inertia of the high velocity assault round fired at her from 8 St James Square, knocked Yvonne Fletcher to the ground in precisely the same direction as the demonstrators, once again proving the direct line of fire. The second TV camera at 8 St James then zoomed in to show Yvonne Fletcher rolling from side to side on the road, dying on national television in excruciating agony for the greater good of the "international community".

It is no great secret that many embassies stock weapons for use in self defence, which are normally limited to handguns loaded with jacketed or solid lead bullets of standard military type, normally 9-mm parabellum, designed to remain intact and not expand on entry to the body. In the case of the 9 millimetre 115 grain bullet fired by defensive pistols, and sub-machine guns such as the Sterling, energy falls from 341 foot-pounds at the muzzle, to 241 foot-pounds at 100 yards. Quite enough to cause serious injury, but rarely death if hit in the upper right back at fifty yards. Conversely, the energy from high velocity 7.62-mm burst-fire assault rifles such as the Belgian FN or German Heckler and Koch51, firing a 150 grain standard military round is a massive 2,288 foot-pounds at 100 yards. Enough to go straight through a policewoman with energy to spare.

The full Fletcher autopsy report will never be made public, but details released at the coronial inquest into her death are sufficient for military experts to prove that a 9-mm parabellum bullet fired by a Sterling could not have been responsible for the terrible damage inflicted, even at point-blank range. After entering WPC Fletcher's upper right back the single bullet damaged the right lung, completely destroyed both lobes of the liver, shredded the large inferior vena cava vein leading to the left ventricle of the heart, caused damage to the spine and cut the pancreas in half, before completing its 12 inch track through her body and exiting below the left rib cage, continuing on to cause further injuries to Fletcher's left elbow. Massive injuries like these sustained through 12 inches of human tissue, can only be caused by the colossal hydrostatic impact and inertia of a full bore (7.62-mm) high velocity assault round.

To rule out any further argument on this point, tissue tests were conducted in Australia to establish the maximum penetration of 9-mm parabellum rounds in pig carcasses. At its maximum muzzle velocity of 1,350 feet per second, the 115 grain bullet fired at 50 yards penetrated only 6 inches, with no hydrostatic effect at all on wet organs such as the liver. Then, to counter ridiculous claims from London that Yvonne might have been killed by a "silenced" pistol or sub-machine gun, more 115 grain rounds were downloaded to a subsonic (silenced) velocity of 900 feet per second. At 50 yards these puny rounds penetrated only 1.5 inches. Further tests established in absolute scientific terms that the minimum round needed to inflict Fletcher's hydrostatic injuries and penetrate 12 inches of tissue, was a bullet with a minimum weight of 150 grains, fired at a velocity in excess of 2,750 feet per second. Such rounds can only be chambered and burst-fired by full-bore high velocity assault weapons.

There are three high velocity rifle rounds specifically designed to cause the savage fatal injuries suffered by Yvonne Fletcher that day, the worst of which is the `petal' fragible, an assassination bullet designed to enter the body before its nose separates into several razor-sharp high velocity splinters, leaving the heavy base of the bullet to continue on a straight track through the body. If three petal frags were fired, with only one striking Fletcher, the remaining two would explode on impact with the paving, hurling razor-sharp metal shrapnel fragments and hard granite chippings in a low arc towards the anti-Quadhafi demonstrators standing behind the barriers just beyond Yvonne Fletcher's position. Quite enough to injure a large number of bystanders but not kill them, which is exactly what happened at 10.19 am on the morning of 17 April 1984.

The question has to asked whether the objective of the covert operation was simply to splatter a few demonstrators with shards of shrapnel, which would have been enough to swing public opinion against Libya. Perhaps the operation simply went wrong and Yvonne Fletcher was killed by mistake? No. The sound track analysis and film footage prove she was hit by the first shot in the 3-shot burst. The first shot in an automatic burst always hits its target, before the weapon "walks" due to recoil effect. Therefore the assault rifle sights were lined-up on Yvonne Fletcher's back when the shooter squeezed the trigger. The only possible verdict is pre-meditated murder.

Hours after Yvonne's death, when the counter-terrorist squadron of the Special Air Service arrived by helicopter from Hereford, its members were advised by a senior police officer that the shots were fired from the Libyan Bureau at 5 St James Square. Good though the SAS normally is at countering terrorists in multiple environments, this wildly inaccurate police information made it impossible for the Squadron to successfully track down Yvonne Fletcher's ruthless killers.

There are few things more sacred to the British public than the safety of its proudly unarmed police force. Therefore the murder of a young unarmed policewoman on the streets of London would generate feelings of intense loathing in the British public and direct raw hatred towards the Libyans as the supposed killers. It did, but the public remained unaware of the real culprits as the horrifying sight of Yvonne Fletcher dying on national television was beamed across Britain into millions of homes.

Police Special Branch and MI5 had suspicions of course. The shots rang out for no obvious reason, and seasoned officers understood only too well that for the Libyans to kill an unarmed policewoman in broad daylight on a London street was tantamount to committing diplomatic suicide. Making the task even harder for police was their exclusion from the first three days of COBRA intelligence meetings after the murder, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was out of the country on an official visit to Portugal.

It was an entirely critical time when the police were in hot pursuit of the murderer of an unarmed British policewoman, and had every right to storm the Libyan People's Bureau in order to search for evidence. Indeed the police wanted to storm the building, but permission was refused by the chairman of COBRA.

It is perhaps a coincidence that, at this early stage, storming the Libyan Bureau could only have proved that no shots were fired from there at all.

The Chairman of COBRA and members of MI6 at the Foreign Office were demonstrably certain that Yvonne Fletcher was not killed by Libyans located in the Bureau, because after a creative media feeding frenzy and a bloodless siege that lasted until 22 April 1984, Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Libya and ordered the occupants of the Bureau to leave the country within seven days. They departed on 27 April, with no suspects being arrested or charged with her murder. Immediately after their departure the Libyan Bureau was entered and searched from top to bottom by a specialist military clearance team looking for booby traps, weapons and ammunition. Despite an exhaustive search of every nook and cranny in the building, nothing was found, a fact reported by the media the next day.

It was not until 2 May 1984, five days after the extensive military search, that the Metropolitan Police suddenly "found" 4,367 rounds of 9-mm and .22 calibre ammunition, 7 pistols, two Sterling pistol grips and two Sterling magazines in the Libyan Bureau. On the face of it, Mr. Plod had suddenly become much more skilled at finding concealed weapons and ammunition than the premier military explosives clearance team.

Who was fooling who? If the weapons and ammunition were Libyan property they would certainly have been loaded into one of the 18 Libyan diplomatic bags which left the country unopened. Critically though, no Sterling sub-machine guns or 7.62-mm high velocity assault rounds were planted in the Libyan building to be later "found" by the Metropolitan Police. There were sound reasons for this. Any "whole" Sterling sub-machine gun could be tested ballistically by forensic scientists, an event that had to be avoided at all costs because it would have exposed the deception; and 7.62-mm assault rounds had to be excluded because WPC Fletcher was notionally murdered with a low velocity 9-mm parabellum round: a fraudulent "fact" officially recorded at the inquest into her death.

The situation became more confusing in April 1985, when on the first anniversary of Yvonne Fletcher's pre-meditated murder, BBC2 Television ran a documentary in which an amateur video film of the demonstration was shown for the first time. The amateur camera allegedly recorded the sound of a 12-shot Sterling sub-machine gun burst, which concurred nicely with the coronial inquest findings of May 1984, and appeared to explain the inexplicable: eleven fired 9-mm bullets found by the Police during a search of St James conducted 10 days after the murder, in which time period the crime scene was not secured. Add to that the 9-mm bullet which allegedly killed Yvonne Fletcher but was not recovered from her body, and we have a neat figure of 12 rounds to match the forged video footage.

The amateur video footage provides an object lesson in how not to use forged evidence in an attempt to pervert the course of justice. The audio of a Sterling firing an 12-shot burst is real enough, but it was not recorded in St James Square, nor on the morning of the 17th April 1984 when Yvonne Fletcher was murdered. How is it possible to prove this? By relying on hard science and ignoring misleading media hype. Immediately before the murder, one of the professional cameramen filmed the front facade of the Libyan building, which was crossed diagonally by a clear shadow line cast by the sun. The exact time was accurately calculated using survey techniques and astronomical data from the Greenwich Observatory in London.

The forged amateur footage also shows a sun line diagonally crossing the front of the Libyan building, but unfortunately it is in the wrong place and at the wrong angle for 10.19 am on the morning of 17 April 1984. More convincing for the layman reader is the car parked in front of the Bureau. On the professional video the car is an unoccupied blue Peugeot sedan with its bonnet positioned between the two windows to the left of the Bureau entrance. On the blatantly forged amateur video, the unoccupied blue Peugeot sedan magically transforms itself into a white station wagon, starts its own engine, then drives itself five feet closer to the Libyan Bureau front door. Clever!

For forensic scientists there are a staggering number of other errors on the footage providing 100% proof of forgery, including the sun shadow line failing to shade the bonnet of the "new" white station wagon; the green Libyan flag vanishing from the pole above the Bureau front door, and a tall black street light to the right of the Bureau disappearing completely.

There is no doubt the forged footage was prepared in order to forever cement the reversed Orwellian media "truth" in the minds of the British Parliament and people. Anyone daring to challenge this reverse media "truth" would be patted indulgently on the head and given a copy of the BBC2 film, complete with the damning forged amateur video footage "proving" the Libyans fired an entirely mythical Sterling sub-machine gun burst that day.

Ultimately the ploy failed. Unwittingly perhaps, the film makers proved their own video footage was deliberately forged, and thus in turn proved they were accessories after the fact to the murder of an unarmed British policewoman on the streets of London. At the time of going to press, Scotland Yard was making no moves to have this loathsome section of the media tracked down and charged. Sooner or later it must do so, because there is no statute of limitation where the murder of a uniformed police officer is concerned.

Yvonne Fletcher's pre-meditated murder was one of the major triggers allowing blanket sanctions to be imposed on Libya by the United Nations Security Council. With less than a handful of bullets Libya was brought to its knees by deception alone. But who did it? It was in early 1984 that an American multinational moved into 8 St James Square. Unknown to the British or Libyans, the multinational owned three smaller oil-related service companies. The first, Intairdrill, operated inside Libya, while the second had exclusive access to the top two floors at 8 St James Square. The author was a consultant to the third. One year after Yvonne Fletcher's murder, all three small companies were discreetly disposed of by the multinational corporation, which was in turn linked to foreign intelligence agencies including the Israeli Mossad and American CIA.

The identity of the person responsible for actually ordering the operation may never be uncovered. Was it the Director of the Mossad, or the Director of the CIA? Or was it simply an in-house multinational job on behalf of one of those agencies or an unknown third party? Because the occupants of 8 St James on that day and their connections are known, it is still possible to backtrack the chain of command, though this would require significant resources.

For the television media 1984 was a landmark year. Though in the past "little" lies had been broadcast frequently, this was the first proven occasion when the media deliberately covered up a horrific murder and reversed the absolute scientific proof for its own biased internationalist reasons, to the detriment of British national security. Fiction was overwhelmingly embraced as a substitute for truth. After 17 April 1984 the media lost its credibility. Lying on national television about the horrific pre-meditated murder of an unarmed British policewoman on the streets of London, proved it would lie about anything at all, once paid the traditional thirty pieces of silver.

WPC Yvonne Joyce Fletcher, ruthlessly sacrificed on television at the age of twenty five, was laid to rest at her local village church in the county of Wiltshire with full police honours. One of her mourners was the very same man who denied her superiors the right to enter the Bureau at 5 St James Square, and prove no shots were fired by the Libyans that day: The Chairman of COBRA.

Source:

http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/yvonne-fletcher-was-killed-by-ciamossad.html

[Steven Gaal]

POSTED BEFORE BUT I THINK ON POINT TO THE ISSUE

=================================================

http://www.wsws.org/...bomb1-a27.shtml

By a German correspondent

27 August 1998

A documentary broadcast August 25 by German public television presents compelling evidence that some of the main suspects in the 1986 Berlin disco bombing, the event that provided the pretext for a US air assault on Libya, worked for American and Israeli intelligence.

The report, aired by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF television), is of the greatest relevance to events of the past three weeks, in which attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania have become the justification for US missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, and a shift in American foreign policy to an even more unbridled use of military force internationally.

With Washington declaring "war against terrorism" and arrogating to itself the right to use its military might unilaterally against any target anywhere in the world, the German TV report raises the most serious and disturbing questions. All the more so, since the US media and leading Republican politicians, within hours of the American embassy bombings, began citing Reagan's 1986 air attack on Libya as an exemplary response to terrorist attacks, and pressed Clinton to carry out similar military action.

The air strike on Libya

On April 15, 1986 US war planes bombed the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. They destroyed the home of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and killed at least 30 civilians, including many children. Gaddafi himself, the main target of the air strike, was not hurt.

Two hours later President Ronald Reagan justified the unprecedented attack on a sovereign country and its head of state in a national television address. The US, Reagan claimed, had "direct, precise and irrefutable" proof that Libya was responsible for a bomb blast in a West Berlin discotheque. The explosion 10 days earlier at the disco La Belle, a favorite nightspot for US soldiers, had killed three people and injured 200.

Since November of 1997 five defendants have been on trial in a Berlin court for their alleged involvement in the La Belle attack. But in the course of more than half a year the case has proceeded very slowly. ZDF television, which carried out its own investigation into the case, explained why in the August 25 documentary produced by its political magazine Frontal.

What the German documentary reveals

The Frontal report arrives at the following conclusions:

1) The lead defendant presently on trial, Yasser Chraidi, is very possibly innocent, and is being used as a scapegoat by German and American intelligence services.

2) At least one of the defendants, Musbah Eter, has been working for the CIA over many years.

3) Some of the key suspects have not appeared in court, because they are being protected by Western intelligence services.

4) At least one of those, Mohammed Amairi, is an agent of Mossad, the Israeli secret service.

The man charged with being the mastermind of the La Belle attack, 38-year-old Yasser Chraidi, was a driver at the Libyan embassy in East Berlin in 1986. He later moved to Lebanon, from whence he was extradited to Germany in May 1996.

Frontal interviewed the two Lebanese responsible for the extradition of Chraidi: the former public prosecutor Mounif Oueidat and his deputy Mrad Azoury. Both confirm that the German authorities used deceit to have Chraidi extradited.

According to Azoury, he received no evidence that Chraidi was actually involved in the attack; there were only "hints." Oueidat states that the Germans showed tremendous interest in getting Chraidi. "The Americans were behind this demand," he says. "This was obvious. They spurred on the Germans to speed up the extradition."

Eventually Chraidi, declared to be a "top terrorist," was flown to Germany in a spectacular security operation. But a Berlin judge found the evidence presented by the prosecution so weak, he threatened to release Chraidi within three weeks unless more proof was presented.

At this point another man was brought into the case, who, according to Frontal, "was obviously supposed to be spared by the prosecution until then." On September 9, 1996, the very day the Berlin judge threatened to release Chraidi, Berlin public prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, Berlin police inspector Uwe Wilhelms and a Mr. Winterstein of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) met Musbah Eter in the Mediterranean island state of Malta.

CIA involvement

The meeting had been prepared by the BND, which maintains close connections to its American counterpart, the CIA. Musbah Eter was running an international business in Malta, which, according to Frontal, served as a cover for extensive intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA.

The German authorities wanted him on a murder charge. But during the Malta meeting a deal was struck: "Immunity for Eter, if he incriminates Chraidi for La Belle." The next day Eter went to the German embassy and testified. As a result, the warrant against him was scrapped and he was allowed to travel to Germany.

In the words of Frontal, Eter is "the key figure in the La Belle trial." At the time of the disco bomb attack he worked for the Libyan embassy in East Berlin. But he paid regular visits to the US embassy. According to Christian Ströbele, the lawyer for Chraidi, this highly unusual fact is proven by extensive notes of the East German secret police, who watched Eter very closely at the time.

There are many indications that Eter was actively involved in the La Belle bombing. According to interrogation transcripts studied by Frontal, he had the detailed knowledge of a participant. He even admitted that he brought the operating instructions for the bomb to the flat of a codefendant.

Frontal asserts that besides the defendants in the present trial, another group was involved in the La Belle bombing--a group of professional terrorists, working for anybody who paid them, led by a certain "Mahmoud" Abu Jaber. Members of this group, according to Frontal, "have barely been bothered by the prosecution and live securely in other countries."

In the months preceding the La Belle attack they lived in East Berlin and met, almost on a daily basis, with the present defendants. Hours before the attack they moved to West Berlin, where the bomb exploded. Their movements were monitored by the East German and Russian secret services, who concluded that they were working for Western intelligence.

The Russian KGB, in a document cited by Frontal, gave the opinion that American counterintelligence planned to use "Mahmoud" to concoct a case for the involvement of Libyan terrorists in the attack. According to the same KGB document, "Mahmoud" had warned West Berlin intelligence two days before the explosion.

Frontal followed the traces of Mohammed Amairi, the right-hand man of "Mahmoud" Abu Jaber, who, according to the documents it has studied, "was particularly involved in the preparation of the La Belle attack."

An agent of Mossad

Amairi left Germany for Norway in 1990, when a warrant was issued for his arrest. He now lives in the Norwegian town of Bergen, where Frontal found and interviewed him. He stopped the interview when he was asked what secret service he had been working for. His lawyer, Odd Drevland, finally told the story.

When Amairi moved to Norway he was arrested and branded "a danger to the country" on the front page of tabloids. But then the Israeli secret service Mossad took charge of him and "everything changed."

"Was Amairi a Mossad agent?" asked Frontal. "He was a Mossad man," answered Drevland.

In the meantime, Norway has granted asylum to Amairi and he will soon receive Norwegian citizenship. The Berlin prosecutor has lifted the warrant against him.

"These secret service intrigues present a task for the Berlin court that is almost insoluble," concludes the Frontal report. "But one thing is certain, the American legend of Libyan state terrorism can no longer be maintained."

There are striking parallels between the 1986 bombing of Libya and last week's missile strikes against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. Once again Washington claims to have "proof" to justify its use of deadly force. But as the Frontal report shows, such claims cannot be trusted. Twelve years after the bombing of Libya, Reagan's proof turns out to be anything but irrefutable. Instead there is powerful evidence that the La Belle attack was a carefully prepared provocation.

It may come as a shock to many Americans, all the more so given the utterly venal and lying role of the US media, but US intelligence services are well versed in the most unscrupulous and bloody methods, not excluding those that result in injury or death to Americans. No serious consideration of the August 7 East African bombings can rule out the possibility of a provocation, organized either directly or indirectly by US agencies.

Certainly the US embassy bombings, with their terrible human toll--for the most part, African--provided a welcome pretext for forcing through a desired shift in policy and obtaining public support for unilateral military action. Indeed, within hours of the US embassy bombings, the International Herald Tribune had published a column declaring the attacks were "acts of war and the United States could take reprisals against the bombers under international law without the approval of the United Nations."

We wait with interest to see whether any of the American television networks--CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN--or any of the establishment newspapers will even take note of the German exposé of the events surrounding the bombing of Libya. We have no expectation that they will.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^******

Edited July 2, 2012 by Steven Gaal