Libyan Hostage Situation 1984
Encyclopedia
The Libyan Hostage Situation began on the night of the murder of WPC Fletcher, April 17, 1984 and lasted until February 5, 1985 (294 days). In accordance with the hostage release agreement that no negative media be released about the Libyan government under the Gaddafi regime, all information has been restricted, until now.
17th April, 1984. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was hit by a bullet from a burst of machine gun fire from within the Libyan Peoples' Bureau (Libyan Embassy) in St James's Sq., London. She died shortly afterwards.
That evening, Doug Ledingham, the airport manager for British Caledonian Airways at Tripoli Universal Airport, Libya, was arrested by soldiers.
17th to 27th April. There was a standoff between the Libyan and British governments over the pursuit of who shot WPC Fletcher. The standoff resulted in the breaking of Diplomatic Relations by Britain with Libya, and the return to Libya under diplomatic immunity of the occupants of the Libyan Peoples' Bureau in London. Rumours abounded at the time as to the fate of the person who is alleged to have fired the fatal shots from the Libyan People's Bureau. Hostages were later informed that gunman had been removed to the end of the runway upon landing in Libya and shot dead on the spot.
Following the breaking of Diplomatic Relations with Libya, the British Embassy in Tripoli was evacuated by the British and ransacked by the Libyans. A skeleton staff of British Diplomats took up office in the Italian Embassy.
14th - 16th of May, 1984, four further British men in Libya were rounded up and detained as hostages against the four, arrested, Libyan nationals in Britain by those claiming to be officials of the Gaddafi Regime
. The men in order of capture were: Michael Berdinner, Alan Russell, Malcolm Anderson and Robin Plummer. At first, Allen Russell and Malcolm Anderson were held at a separate location where they were questioned and beaten. Ledingham, Berdinner and Plummer (Plummer in solitary confinement) were in the same facility, the Italian Mansion, a building approximately 400 yards distant from the Italian Embassy.
12th June, 1984 a month after being taken hostage the five men were allowed a meeting with the British Second Consul, George Anderson, who was able to offer only pastoral care and contact with home, but no suggestion of release. It was clear by this time, however, that the men were being held as hostages by one of Col Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees, in defiance of international law. Return to their respective prisons was followed by little or no improvement in the hostages' circumstances.
19th July, 1984. A second meeting with George Anderson resulted in all the hostages being put into one location, the Italian Mansion, and being fed an improved diet and medical attention. This improvement in circumstances was accompanied by a slow but inexorable descent into gloom of the hostages isolated from all news of the outside world.
Meanwhile in Britain, unbeknownst to the hostages, their families, notably Pat Plummer and Carole Russell were working tirelessly with Kate Adie
of the BBC and Brent Sadler
of ITN to keep the hostage's plight in the media to keep the situation in the news and the profile high on the government's agenda. By now, the families were being kept up to date on a daily basis by contacts within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London as to the stalemate between Libya and Britain, with a continual decline in international relations between Libya and most of the rest of the world.
Summer 1984. In London, a Committee in parliament was held to determine whether or not what the British Government had done over the Libyan Hostage Situation was reasonable. The committee concluded that in the circumstances, the British Government had done all it reasonably could in the light of what little was known at the time.
7th August 1984. The Libyans allowed family members to visit the hostages. These visits brought unofficial news of the, as yet, publicly undisclosed involvement of Mr Terry Waite
, the Special Envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of the Church of England.
1st September 1984. Doug Ledingham and George Bush, another prisoner, arrested and detained on bona fide charges unrelated to the Libyan Hostage Situation, were freed and allowed home. On the day of their release, British television news was granted access to and showed the world for the first time, detail of the hostage situation.
17th October, 1984, two of the wives of the hostages, Pat Plummer and Carole Russell, attended a meeting with the Prime Minister Mrs Margaret, now Baroness, Thatcher. The two wives petitioned for a representative of the British Government to go to Libya and start negotiations for the release of the hostages. This meeting was soon followed by the arrival in Libya of Terry Waite.
21st October, 1984 Alan Russell and Malcolm Anderson are removed from the Italian Mansion and taken to the Libyan courts where they are charged with transporting state secretes.
10th – 18th Nov, 1984. Terry Waite in Libya. The Hostage Situation showed no signs of thawing, in spite of national and international efforts to secure the release of the hostages and the intervention at a pastoral level of Mr Waite.
13-14th Dec, 1984 Allen Russell is placed on trial and charged with sharing state secretes with British journalists. Robin Plummer seizes the opportunity to speak to the press post being question and state's his innocence and makes a plea for warm clothing.
24th Dec, 1984. The four men are confirmed as political hostages by Gaddafi. Mr Waite held a Christmas carol service with the hostages.
6th Jan, 1985. Col Gaddafi himself placed the matter of the remaining hostages before the members of the Basic and General Peoples' Congresses, the system of democracy prevalent in Libya at the time, for a decision on the release of the hostages.
1st Feb, 1985. Then WPC Fletcher's memorial was unveiled temporarily disrupting negotiations and sent a very clear message to the Libyans.
5th Feb, 1985. The Congresses voted by an overwhelming majority to release the hostages. But there were conditions to the release. The release was however subject to a few days' delay, for undisclosed reasons.
7th February, 1985, after almost 9 months (294 days), the hostages arrived back in England.
An interpretation of Condition 4 could include a complete absence in any British controlled media of any reference to the Libyan Hostage Situation for fear that any such reference might be construed by the Libyan authorities as a breach of Condition 4. In accordance with this interpretation, there has been almost no reference to the Libyan Hostage Situation in literature since the time of the release. Indeed most references that state the history of Libya at the time make reference to the murder of WPC Fletcher and then make no reference whatsoever to the Libyan Hostage Situation, skipping instead to the bombing of Libya by the Americans in 1986. This is a quite extraordinary omission considering how historically important was the Libyan Hostage Situation in terms of lessons learnt, international relations with Libya and the severance of diplomatic relations (not broken off easily, said Sir Geoffrey (now Lord) Howe), and the extent to which the handling of future hostage situations was influenced by the experiences of the Libyan Hostage Situation.
Libyan Hostage Situation
March of 1984, four Libyan nationals were arrested on charges following explosions at Manchester and Heathrow airports in the UK and were remanded in custody.17th April, 1984. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was hit by a bullet from a burst of machine gun fire from within the Libyan Peoples' Bureau (Libyan Embassy) in St James's Sq., London. She died shortly afterwards.
That evening, Doug Ledingham, the airport manager for British Caledonian Airways at Tripoli Universal Airport, Libya, was arrested by soldiers.
17th to 27th April. There was a standoff between the Libyan and British governments over the pursuit of who shot WPC Fletcher. The standoff resulted in the breaking of Diplomatic Relations by Britain with Libya, and the return to Libya under diplomatic immunity of the occupants of the Libyan Peoples' Bureau in London. Rumours abounded at the time as to the fate of the person who is alleged to have fired the fatal shots from the Libyan People's Bureau. Hostages were later informed that gunman had been removed to the end of the runway upon landing in Libya and shot dead on the spot.
Following the breaking of Diplomatic Relations with Libya, the British Embassy in Tripoli was evacuated by the British and ransacked by the Libyans. A skeleton staff of British Diplomats took up office in the Italian Embassy.
14th - 16th of May, 1984, four further British men in Libya were rounded up and detained as hostages against the four, arrested, Libyan nationals in Britain by those claiming to be officials of the Gaddafi Regime
Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...
. The men in order of capture were: Michael Berdinner, Alan Russell, Malcolm Anderson and Robin Plummer. At first, Allen Russell and Malcolm Anderson were held at a separate location where they were questioned and beaten. Ledingham, Berdinner and Plummer (Plummer in solitary confinement) were in the same facility, the Italian Mansion, a building approximately 400 yards distant from the Italian Embassy.
12th June, 1984 a month after being taken hostage the five men were allowed a meeting with the British Second Consul, George Anderson, who was able to offer only pastoral care and contact with home, but no suggestion of release. It was clear by this time, however, that the men were being held as hostages by one of Col Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees, in defiance of international law. Return to their respective prisons was followed by little or no improvement in the hostages' circumstances.
19th July, 1984. A second meeting with George Anderson resulted in all the hostages being put into one location, the Italian Mansion, and being fed an improved diet and medical attention. This improvement in circumstances was accompanied by a slow but inexorable descent into gloom of the hostages isolated from all news of the outside world.
Meanwhile in Britain, unbeknownst to the hostages, their families, notably Pat Plummer and Carole Russell were working tirelessly with Kate Adie
Kate Adie
Kathryn "Kate" Adie , OBE , is a British journalist. Her most high-profile role was that of chief news correspondent for BBC News, during which time she became well known for reporting from war zones around the world...
of the BBC and Brent Sadler
Brent Sadler
Brent Sadler is a former CNN correspondent to the Middle East, lived in Beirut, Lebanon for the past decade, where he has been CNN's bureau chief since 1997....
of ITN to keep the hostage's plight in the media to keep the situation in the news and the profile high on the government's agenda. By now, the families were being kept up to date on a daily basis by contacts within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London as to the stalemate between Libya and Britain, with a continual decline in international relations between Libya and most of the rest of the world.
Summer 1984. In London, a Committee in parliament was held to determine whether or not what the British Government had done over the Libyan Hostage Situation was reasonable. The committee concluded that in the circumstances, the British Government had done all it reasonably could in the light of what little was known at the time.
7th August 1984. The Libyans allowed family members to visit the hostages. These visits brought unofficial news of the, as yet, publicly undisclosed involvement of Mr Terry Waite
Terry Waite
Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...
, the Special Envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, of the Church of England.
1st September 1984. Doug Ledingham and George Bush, another prisoner, arrested and detained on bona fide charges unrelated to the Libyan Hostage Situation, were freed and allowed home. On the day of their release, British television news was granted access to and showed the world for the first time, detail of the hostage situation.
17th October, 1984, two of the wives of the hostages, Pat Plummer and Carole Russell, attended a meeting with the Prime Minister Mrs Margaret, now Baroness, Thatcher. The two wives petitioned for a representative of the British Government to go to Libya and start negotiations for the release of the hostages. This meeting was soon followed by the arrival in Libya of Terry Waite.
21st October, 1984 Alan Russell and Malcolm Anderson are removed from the Italian Mansion and taken to the Libyan courts where they are charged with transporting state secretes.
10th – 18th Nov, 1984. Terry Waite in Libya. The Hostage Situation showed no signs of thawing, in spite of national and international efforts to secure the release of the hostages and the intervention at a pastoral level of Mr Waite.
13-14th Dec, 1984 Allen Russell is placed on trial and charged with sharing state secretes with British journalists. Robin Plummer seizes the opportunity to speak to the press post being question and state's his innocence and makes a plea for warm clothing.
24th Dec, 1984. The four men are confirmed as political hostages by Gaddafi. Mr Waite held a Christmas carol service with the hostages.
6th Jan, 1985. Col Gaddafi himself placed the matter of the remaining hostages before the members of the Basic and General Peoples' Congresses, the system of democracy prevalent in Libya at the time, for a decision on the release of the hostages.
1st Feb, 1985. Then WPC Fletcher's memorial was unveiled temporarily disrupting negotiations and sent a very clear message to the Libyans.
5th Feb, 1985. The Congresses voted by an overwhelming majority to release the hostages. But there were conditions to the release. The release was however subject to a few days' delay, for undisclosed reasons.
7th February, 1985, after almost 9 months (294 days), the hostages arrived back in England.
Conditions for Release
- Britain should undertake not to support "stray dogs" (political exiles), to hand them over, and to stop antagonistic acts against the Libyan people;
- British Government to work for release of the Libyan prisoners in the UK;
- The Anglican Church to undertake to look after Libyan students in Britain and to endeavour to secure release of Libyan prisoners;
- British Government to stop anti-Libyan propaganda channeled through British media;
- Her Majesty's Government to undertake to treat Libyans in accordance with international law.
An interpretation of Condition 4 could include a complete absence in any British controlled media of any reference to the Libyan Hostage Situation for fear that any such reference might be construed by the Libyan authorities as a breach of Condition 4. In accordance with this interpretation, there has been almost no reference to the Libyan Hostage Situation in literature since the time of the release. Indeed most references that state the history of Libya at the time make reference to the murder of WPC Fletcher and then make no reference whatsoever to the Libyan Hostage Situation, skipping instead to the bombing of Libya by the Americans in 1986. This is a quite extraordinary omission considering how historically important was the Libyan Hostage Situation in terms of lessons learnt, international relations with Libya and the severance of diplomatic relations (not broken off easily, said Sir Geoffrey (now Lord) Howe), and the extent to which the handling of future hostage situations was influenced by the experiences of the Libyan Hostage Situation.
External links
- Country Studies>Libya>Government>Britian, Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Libya: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.