Prime suspect in 1984 murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher ‘was allowed to settle in UK and buy £400,000 house with cash because he was spying for Britain’

• Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk was the only suspect ever arrested over the 1984 murder
• He was allegedly later allowed to settle in the UK because he was a spy for Britain
• PC Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was shot dead by a sniper outside Libya Embassy in 1984

The prime suspect in the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher was allegedly allowed to settle in the UK and buy a £400,000 house with cash because he was spying for Britain. 

Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk returned to Britain in 2009, several years after Fletcher was shot dead by a sniper outside the Libyan Embassy in London, and was allowed to live in Reading despite being the main suspect in the murder investigation. 

He was arrested in 2015 in connection with Fletcher’s murder but was told two years later the case would not go forward on national security grounds even though police said they had sufficient evidence to bring him to court.

It has now emerged Mabrouk was allowed to return to Britain and may have escaped prosecution as he was considered a state asset because of his links to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.  

He was an ‘agent of influence’ understood to have been involved in talks that led to Gaddafi agreeing to eliminate Libya’s weapons of mass destruction programme in December 2003, the Telegraph reported. 

Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, (pictured) the prime suspect in the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher was allegedly allowed to settle in the UK and buy a £400,000 house with cash because he was spying for Britain

Mabrouk was a senior member of the ‘revolutionary committee’ that ran the Libyan embassy at the time of Fletcher’s murder in 1984.

He was expelled from Britain in the aftermath but allowed back in 1999 after Tony Blair restored relations with Libya.

In the years that followed he received multiple visas and in 2002 was given a ‘comfort letter’ which stopped border officials from questioning him each time he arrived.

In 2009, Mabrouk purchased a £385,000 house in Reading, where he would live for the next 10 years after claiming asylum in the UK in 2011.

Unidentified sources claimed he was able to get around the UK’s strict money laundering laws to buy the Berkshire house because of his usefulness to the British state and that a ‘deal’ that allowed him to return was ‘part of the reconciliation with Libya’.

Another senior officer said there was ‘no way’ Mabrouk would have been allowed to bring cash into the UK and settle here ‘without somebody in authority… helping you.’

Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead by a sniper outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984

Fletcher was shot by in the stomach by a sniper outside the St James’s Square address in London in 1984. Mabrouk is the prime suspect in the murder but charges have never been brought against him

The source said: ‘My understanding of it is that Yvonne Fletcher’s killer was on the Government’s books. 

‘We started recruiting people in Libya, and at least one of the people they are going after is implicated in the murder of a police officer.

‘I remember hearing at the time that Mabrouk was on our books and that was the problem with pursuing the criminal investigation. 

‘They will never admit this, but there is no way somebody like that can bring all that money into the country without bringing something to the table.’ 

Criminal investigations into the murder were dropped in 2017, despite the Metropolitan Police telling the Home Officer they believed they had enough evidence to bring someone to court.

Met Police said: ‘Our investigation has identified enough material to identify those responsible for WPC Fletcher’s murder if it could be presented to a court.

‘However, the key material has not been made available for use in court in evidential form for reasons of national security.’

But Mabrouk is this year set to face a civil suit being brought by retired police officer John Murray who held PC Fletcher in his arms as she died. 

A High Court hearing next month will likely delve into the details of Fletcher’s death, evidence of Mabrouk’s alleged involvement, and discuss the alleged designation of the case’s prime suspect as a state asset. 

However, last year the Home Office secretly barred Mabrouk from returning to the UK, raising fears the prime suspect in the Yvonne Fletcher murder case will never face justice.

Mabrouk was told that he was ‘excluded’ from Britain in January 2019, six weeks after Mr Murray started civil action against him. 

The letter said: ‘Your presence here would not be conducive to the public good, due to your suspected involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Libya.’

Following the decision, Mr Murray, said the move to bar the Libyan from the UK meant ‘the Home Office has got blood on its hands’.

Although criminal investigations into the murder have been dropped, Mabrouk is this year set to face a civil suit being brought by retired police officer John Murray (pictured) who held PC Fletcher in his arms as she died

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