Siege
Following the shooting, the embassy was surrounded by armed police for eleven days, in one of the longest police sieges in London's history. Meanwhile, Gaddafi claimed that the embassy was under attack from British forces, and Libyan soldiers surrounded the United Kingdom's embassy in Tripoli in response.
The British government eventually resolved the incident by allowing the embassy staff to leave the embassy and then expelling them from the country. The United Kingdom then ended all diplomatic relations with Libya. However, six British nationals were held as political hostages in Libya by a Revolutionary Committee following the shooting. They were released after nine months of detention on 5 February 1985, four days after the unveiling of Fletcher's memorial in St. James's Square.
Read more about this topic: Murder Of Yvonne Fletcher
Famous quotes containing the word siege:
“One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)