§ 17. Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)If he will make a statement on the progress made in the inquiry relating to the murder of WPC Fletcher. [85581]
§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Jack Straw)The Metropolitan police have recently completed the report of their review of the evidence surrounding WPC Fletcher's murder and of the allegations made in the "Dispatches" programmes, and I understand that no evidence or intelligence was found to corroborate those allegations. Instead, the review has supported the findings of the original investigation that WPC Fletcher was killed by a bullet fired from the first floor of the Libyan People's Bureau.
§ Mr. DalyellI thank my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for his sustained personal interest in the matter and for his letter of 3 June. Will the criminal investigation in conjunction with the Libyan authorities take a long time? What is the hoped-for time scale?
§ Mr. StrawFirst, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks, but I wish to thank him in return for his great 20 forbearance because the investigation by the Metropolitan police took much longer than anybody anticipated. As I said to him in my letter, that is at least testament to the thoroughness with which the review was conducted. I cannot give my hon. Friend a precise answer to his second question, but I am happy to write to him and, as I said in my letter of 3 June, to meet him to brief him in more detail about the nature of the review.