Foreign relations of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against the execution of two dissidents. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade. Two months later, Gaddafi asserted that he wanted his agents to assassinate dissident refugees, even if they were just on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca—in August 1984, a Libyan plot in Mecca was thwarted by Saudi Arabian police. After the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around
Embassy of Libya, London and were not resumed until 1999, whereupon the embassy was moved to its current location in Knightsbridge. The embassy was again the focus of attention in 2011 during the Libyan Civil War. There were several protests in the early part of the year against the Gaddafi government's crackdown on protesters in Benghazi, culminating in the occupation of the embassy's roof and the swapping of the flag with that of the National Transitional Council (now the current Libyan flag). In July of that year the British government expelled the existing embassy staff and formally recognised the NTC as the sole legitimate