Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:7632 misc.legal:4042 alt.flame:1725
Path: utzoo!utgpu!tmsoft!spectrix!clewis
From: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris R. Lewis)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,misc.legal,alt.flame
Subject: Re: Historical and Geographic inaccuracies.
Message-ID: <465@spectrix.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 88 22:22:27 GMT
References: <2445@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <6385@oberon.USC.EDU> <995@stratus.UUCP> <792@athos.rutgers.edu> <613@crcmar.crc.uucp> <2642@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Reply-To: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris R. Lewis)
Organization: Spectrix Microsystems Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 32

In article <2642@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes:
>In article <613@crcmar.crc.uucp> steve@crcmar.crc.uucp (Steve Ardron) writes:
>>
>>> -In London, after a policewoman was killed from a window of the Libyan 
>>>  'embassy' in 1984, the killer was safely reconducted to the border by the 
>>>  British police.
>>
>>This was a touchy situation because they couldn't prove that he did it, you
>>can't just go around locking people up without evidence of some kind.
>
>He had a diplomatic passport, no ?

If I recall correctly the original quote is too simple to describe the 
situation and the other points are irrelevant.

After the policewoman was shot the embassy was surrounded by police and
the British government demanded that either the perpetrator be surrendered,
or that officials be allowed in to investigate the matter.  And were perfectly
prepared to sit there waiting for whomever came out.  Nobody was quite
sure *who* did it.  The Libyans said "no way", surrounded the British embassy
in Libya and made various threats (up to and including full-scale massacres).
So, after a couple of days of this the British Government ordered the Libyans
to close their embassy down in London and sent *everybody* out of the country.
The Libyans of course did the same thing...

To do anything further would have greatly endangered British lives in Libya.
Regardless of diplomatic immunity - it's unclear whether the perpetrator
had any.
-- 
Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo, lsuc, yunexus}!spectrix!clewis
Phone: (416)-474-1955