Diplomats expelled after shooting

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 12

Diplomats expelled after shooting

NZPA-Reuter London Britain has ordered two Cuban diplomats, including the Ambassador, to leave Britain after police allegations that an envoy fired shots at people on a busy London street. The Foreign Office said the expulsion of a commercial attache, Carlos Manuel Medina Perez, and the Ambassador, Oscar Fernandez-Mell, should serve as a warning to other London-based diplomats not to carry arms. Police quoted Medina Perez as saying he opened fire outside his home because he believed his life was in danger. Witnesses said the at-

tache fired up to five shots when a car with four people pulled up in front of his house. The men ran off, one holding a blood-soaked handkerchief to his head, and were picked up by another car in an adjacent street. Medina Perez was arrested. Scotland Yard said he surrendered his revolver and was released from a police station after claiming diplomatic immunity. Police sealed off the attache’s apartment for investigations. The Cuban Embassy declined to comment on the incident, which occurred less than a week after a

Vietnamese diplomat was expelled for brandishing a revolver in front of his embassy during a demonstration. “One doesn’t lightly expel an Ambassador with just about 24 hours notice and that is an indication of how strongly we feel. I hope the message now gets home to the diplomatic corps that we are not prepared to have this kind of behaviour on the streets of London,” a junior Minister, Tim Eggar, told reporters.

British officials made it clear they viewed the most recent shooting as sign of a growing danger from the secret arming of diplomats by some embas-

sies. In 1984, Britain expelled about 50 Libyans and broke off diplomatic links with Tripoli after a policewoman was killed by shots fired from the Libyan Embassy. Britain’s relations with Cuba have long been strained. Diplomatic sources said Fernandez-Mell was appointed last April only after London had refused to accredit the man Havana had originally proposed as Ambassador. 8 The Labour Foreign Affairs spokesman, George Foulkes, accused the Government of conducting a vendetta against the Cuban Embassy.