Former Libyan education minister arrested over 1984 death of police officer Yvonne Fletcher
The suspect was also a high-ranking member of Gaddafi’s revolutionary committees
A former Libyan education minister and high-ranking member of Muammar Gaddafi’s revolutionary committees, which were tasked with suppressing opposition, is the man arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder PC Yvonne Fletcher three decades ago, the Guardian has learned.
Dr Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk was deported from Britain after Fletcher’s murder outside the Libyan embassy in 1984, but the deportation order was lifted in 2000. He returned to the UK to seek political asylum in 2011 following the eruption of civil war in the country and shortly before Gaddafi was killed.
Mabrouk was arrested at his home in south-east England on suspicion of conspiracy to murder and money laundering on Thursday, while his wife, Camilla Othman, in her 40s, and son Osama Saleh Ibrahim, in his 30s, were arrested on suspicion of money laundering only.
Ibrahim, who lives in London, told the Guardian all three have been released on bail. “It’s been like a nightmare,” he said. Describing his father’s experience, he said: “He’s ok … You know when you didn’t do anything … But we trust the law here in England.”
The Metropolitan police would not confirm the identities of those arrested.
Mabrouk, who was with demonstrators outside the Libyan embassy in London on the morning PC Fletcher was shot, previously told reporters in 2012 he was applying for political asylum in the UK.
He had been allowed to return to Britain as part of a Foreign Office initiative to improve Anglo-Libyan relations. The agreement was part of a wideranging deal negotiated by former foreign secretary Robin Cook to bring the Libyan Lockerbie suspects to trial.