Britain expels Libyan envoy

Press, 26 April 1984, Page 1

Britain expels Libyan envoy

NZPA-AP London British authorities stepped up their promised crack-down on Libyans on Tuesday, expelling Colonel Gadaffi’s personal envoy in London and detaining nine Libyans, including another top revolutionary “student” leader.

As the police siege of the Libyan Embassy in London entered its second week, a Scotland Yard spokesman said that anti-terrorist detectives detained Matooq Muhammed Matooq, one of the four-man “committee of revolutionary students” who took over the embassy on February 18. He declined to give any details of the arrest. Officials declined to say. whether Matooq, who has no diplomatic status, will be deported. But the British Press Association said, “It is expected that such moves could soon be made.” Eight other Libyan “students” were detained at London’s Heathrow Airport on Tuesday when they flew in from Belgrade and Tripoli. At Britain’s request, three Libyan officials later arrived at Gatwick Airport, south of London, to help supervise the removal of the 20 to 30 Libyans holed up in the embassy after a policewoman was shot dead last week. The British have given the Libyans until Sunday to leave the embassy. The delegation was led by Colonel Abd Rahman Shaibi, aged 46, described on the British Caledonian airline’s passenger list as Libya’s External Security Minister. The others were identified only as Nasir Ashur and Ahmed Said. The British Government

expelled Abdul Ghadir Bagdadi, aged 34, Colonel Gadaffi’s main representative and leader of the “committee of revolutionary students” who took over the embassy because Colonel Gadaffi considered it was not taking a sufficiently anti-Western line.

Mr Bagdadi, identified by Libyan sources in London as a fanatical follower of Colonel Gadaffi, was put on to a Tripoli-bound aircraft. Another member of the embassy committee, Saleh Ibrahim Mabruk, aged 26, was deported on Monday. Matooq’s arrest means that the British police have now accounted for all four committee members. None were in the embassy when a machine-gunner fired on anti-Gadaffi demonstrators, killing the policewoman and wounding 11 protesters.

The fourth man, Ali abuJaziah, identified by Libyan sources in London as the committee’s “hatchet man,” returned to Tripoli a week before last week’s shooting.

The London-based National Front for the Salvation of Libya, an antiGadaffi group, claimed the four-man committee organised bombings in London and Manchester on March 10 and il against dissident exiles. The police have declined to comment on that report. Further report, page 10