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
1984 Libyan hostage incident shots from the Libyan People's Bureau. In 1986, a British businessman who had worked for Colonel Gaddafi's regime reported WPC Fletcher's killer had been hanged as soon as he returned to Libya. 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. 14–16 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