UK detectives plan Libya visit to hunt killer of London policewoman in 1984

Negotiations are under way with the National Transitional Council to allow officers into Libya to find the killer of 25-year-old Yvonne Fletcher, who died while policing an anti-Qaddafi demonstration at the Libyan embassy in 1984.

LONDON // Scotland Yard detectives hope to travel to Tripoli as part of a 27-year hunt for a Libyan diplomat who shot dead a policewoman in London.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, said yesterday that negotiations are under way with the National Transitional Council (NTC) to allow officers into Libya to find the killer of 25-year-old Yvonne Fletcher. "There is an ongoing police investigation and I am sure the new authorities in Libya will cooperate," he added.

Fletcher died while policing an anti-Qaddafi demonstration at the Libyan embassy in 1984. The gunman fired from inside the building.

An 11-day siege followed before about 30 Libyans were allowed to leave under diplomatic immunity, to the fury of the British public.

Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, a low-level diplomat, was named as the man who fired the shots, although The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported yesterday that he was believed to be dead.

But a police source in London said: "We remain to be convinced. We cannot rule out that the regime simply gave him a new identity." Two more diplomats in the embassy at the time, Matouk Mohammed Matouk and Abdulqadir Al Baghdadi, have been implicated in ordering and supervising the shooting.

On Tuesday, an NTC spokesman said Baghdadi had been shot dead as part of a feud between opposing pro-Qaddafi factions.