London's Libyan Embassy Shootout - A Case of International Terrorism (From Terrorism - How the West Can Win, P 139-145, 1986, Benjamin Netanyahu, ed. - See NCJ-101510)

• NCJ Number: 101523
• Author(s): A J Goldberg
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 7 pages
• Sale Source: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper discusses diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention in relation to the British Government's response to a terrorist incident at the Libyan Embassy in London that resulted in the death of a police constable.

Abstract

In this case, the two gunmen responsible for the death successfully claimed immunity and were allowed to leave the country. However, the purpose of the Convention was to grant immunity only to bonafide diplomatic agents, bona fide embassies, and bona fide diplomatic bags, not to terrorist murderers masquerading as diplomats and using their claimed immunity to prevent search and seizure of the murder weapons. Thus, under the terms of the Convention, the Government would have been justified in bringing these killers to justice despite claims to the contrary by public officials. The only British response to this crime was to sever diplomatic relations with Libya and announce its intentions to seek amendments to the Convention that would take into account abuses of diplomatic credentials and privileges. The choice to submit to terrorist blackmail under the subterfuge of spurious diplomatic immunity encourages rather than deters terrorism.