DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK – WHERE GOOD AND EVIL COLLIDE & WHERE FANTASY MEETS REALITY .
TRUE CRIME , MURDERABILIA, WITCHCRAFT, SATANISM AND THE OCCULT …. IT’S ALL HERE AND MUCH MORE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE , UK .
ABOVE: Original painting by Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman of John Wayne Gacy on display at Littledean Jail .
All of Gacy’s known murders were committed inside his Norwood Park, Illinois home. His victims would typically be lured to this address by force or deception, and all but one victim were murdered by either asphyxiation or strangulation with a tourniquet (his first victim was stabbed to death). Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River.
Gacy became known as the “Killer Clown” due to his charitable services at fundraising events, parades, and children’s parties where he would dress as “Pogo the Clown”, a character he devised himself.
BELOW : Various exhibit items to include one of Gacy’s “Pogo The Clown ” suits , handwritten and signed correspondence , a hand painting and various other memorabilia, all of which is on display here at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail , Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .
ABOVE AND BELOW : One of John Wayne Gacy’s original worn clown suits. There are two other known Gacy clown suits on display at The National Museum of Crime , Washington DC , USA .
BELOW: picture of 2 other Gacy clown suits, on display at The National Museum of Crime, Washington DC ….. Previously owned ( not sure if he still owns them ) by Jonathan Davis, lead singer of American Heavy Metal Band “Korn .”
ABOVE: John Wayne Gacy pictured in jail, so say, shortly before his execution by lethal injection
ORIGINAL 4 FT X 3 FT CANVAS OIL PAINTING INTERPRETATION OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE SAS FINAL ASSAULT ON MAY 5, 1980 ….PRIVATELY COMMISIONED BY THE CRIME THROUGH TIME MUSEUM FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL . PAINTED BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN .
ABOVE AND BELOW : PLEASE KINDLY NOTE BOTH THESE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS WERE COMMISSIONED BY AND REMAIN COPYRIGHT OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL . THESE IMAGES CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT FROM ANDY JONES , CURATOR OF THE MUSEUM .
COMING SOON …. OFFICIAL RELEAE DATE 4 AUGUST 2017
A must see SAS film due to be launched worldwide on 4 August 2017..If in the area of Gloucestershire do pop by to The Forest of Dean and visit The UK’s only comprehensive SAS who dares wins private exhibition open to the public here at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail. Includes a unique and hopefully educational feature This historic moment on the SAS Operation Nimrod – Iranian Embassy Siege 30 April – 5 May 1980 ..with personal contributions and original sas memorabilia from some of those involved in the siege.
Picture By: Jules Annan Picture Shows:COMMEMARATIVE PLATE AND TANKARD FOR THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF OPERATION NIMROD (THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE 1980) NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S …”WHO DARES WINS ” – SAS COUNTER TERRORISM EXHIBITION … Date 12th November 2012 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*
IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE FINAL ASSAULT SIGNED ILLUSTRATION
REAR OF IRANIAN EMBASSY AT TIME OF THE FINAL ASSAULT , SIGNED BY PETE WINNER
ABOVE AND BELOW : PETE “SNAPPER” WINNER AKA SOLDIER I, BLUE TEAM , SAS OPERATION NIMROD, IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE . PICTURED HERE ON A RECENT PRIVATE VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL TO HAVE A LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS OF THE FINAL ASSAULT AND SAS HOSTAGE RESCUE….. NOW HERE ON DISPLAY.
ABOVE & BELOW : 22 SAS “B” SQUADRON VETERAN … BOB CURRY PICTURES HERE DURING A VISIT TO LITTLEDEAN JAIL . BOB CURRY WAS THE FIRST MAN IN TO THE REAR OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE BUILDING AS PART OF THE BLUE TEAM FINAL ASSAULT SAS TROOPERS.
BELOW: ORIGINAL HAND SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF SAS TROOPERS BOB CURRY ( FIRSF MAN INTO THE REAR OF THE EMBASSY BUILDING FOLLOWED BEHIND BY BLUE TEAM LEADER RUSTY FIMIN
Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Various original 1983 hand painted Airfix 1:32 scale SAS Black kit clad troopers here on display at the SAS Who Dares Wins ” CRW ” ( “Counter Revolutionary Warfare ” ) Exhibition at LittleDean Jail Date 13/04/2013 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*
Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Authentic hand signed S6 NBC protective gas mask, respirator and holdall as of the type used during the Iranian Embassy Siege on 5 May 1980 by former SAS trooper … Pete Winner, AKA Soldier “I”, now on display to the public here at the Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean jail, Gloucestershire Date ;10/06/2014
Picture By:Jules Annan Picture Shows:Original Operation Nimrod Pye Pocketfone 70 microphone sets used by the SAS during the1980 Iranian Embassy Seige storming and now here on display at the SAS Who Dares Wins ” CRW ” ( “Counter Revolutionary Warfare ” ) Exhibition at LittleDean Jail Date 13/04/2013 Ref: *World Rights Only* *Unbylined uses will incur an additional discretionary fee!*
HERE IS A UNIQUE REPLICA SCALE MODEL OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY AS WAS CONSTRUCTED AND USED BY “B” SQUADRON 22 SAS REGIMENT IN THE RUN-UP TO THE FINAL ASSAULT ON 5 MAY 1980 …. RESULTING IN THE KILLING OF 5 OF THE 6 TERRORISTS AND THE RELEASE OF THE REMAINING 19 HOSTAGES .
THIS BEING KINDLY HAND BUILT BY FORMER “A” SQUADRON FREEFALL TROOPER …BOB PODESTA FOR DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S… “SAS WHO DARES WINS EXHIBITION ” . THE MODEL HAS BEEN FURTHER CUSTOMISED WITH THE HELP OF PAUL BRIDGMAN WITH THE INCLUSION OF THE VARIOUS FIGURES DEPICTING HOSTAGES, TERRORISTS (ALL IN GREEN JACKETS AND BLACK CLOTHING ), THE SAS TROOPERS AND RESERVES STORMING THE EMBASSY BUILDING AND VARIOUS OTHER SCENES RELATING TO THE EVENT .
BOB PODESTA SAS “A” SQUADRON
FRONT ELEVATION OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ACCESS AND INTERNAL ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
NEWSPAPER COVERAGE AT TIME OF FINAL ASSAULT AND SIGNAGE FOR MODEL
REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
REAR ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
ROOF ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
FRONT ELEVATION ASSAULT OF IRANIAN EMBASSY
REPLICA OF ONE OF THE RUSSIAN HAND GRENADES CARRIED BY THE TERRORISTS DURING THE SIEGE .
REPLICA OF ONE OF THE RUSSIAN HAND GRENADES CARRIED BY THE TERRORISTS DURING THE SIEGE , PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .
AN ILLUSTRATIVE PICTURE OF THE STAIRWELL SCENE AT THE END OF THE SIEGE,, PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .
AN ILLUSTRATIVE PICTURE OF THE STAIRWELL SCENE AT THE END OF THE SIEGE,, PERSONALLY SIGNED UP FOR DISPLAY BY SAS TROOPER … PETE WINNER WHO WAS ONE OF THE SAS INVOLVED IN THE STORMING OF THE BUILDING .
COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY WARFARE (CRW) , TERRORISM AND COUNTER TERRORISM WITH THE UK’S SPECIAL FORCES HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ABOVE IS A RARE JOHN McALEESE ( SIGNED AS JOHN MAC) LIMITED EDITION HECKLER AND KOCH POSTER. THIS TO COMMEMORATE THE SUCCESSFUL SAS OPERATION NIMROD, STORMING OF THE IRANIAN EMBASSY TO END THE SIEGE ON MAY 5, 1980 .THIS BEING ON DISPLAY HERE IN AND AMONGST OUR SAS WHO DARES WINS EXHIBITION AT THE JAIL .
ABOVE: A COUPLE OF PICS OF JOHN McALEESE
DO COME VISIT AND SEE OUR EVER EXPANDING AND HISTORICALLY INTRIGUING PRIVATELY OWNED COLLECTION OF SAS MEMORABILIA AND PARAPHERNALIA.
HOPEFULLY THIS PROVIDES YOU AS VISITORS WITH A FASCINATING INSIGHT INTO THE HEROIC SAS AND INDEED OTHER SPECIAL FORCES THAT WE FEATURE HERE ON DISPLAY .
ABOVE AND BELOW: JOHN McALEESE’S TREASURED DAUGHTER HAYLEY PICTURED WITH SOME OF THE EXCLUSIVE SAS MERCHANDISE … FEATURING JOHN MAC, WHICH HAS KINDLY BEEN PERSONALLY SANCTIONED AND APPROVED BY HAYLEY.
ALSO HAYLEY PICTURED (WITH BLONDE HAIR) ,WITH HER FATHER.
ABOVE AND BELOW : COPIES OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTINGS BY PAUL BRIDGMAN ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL.
HERE BELOW IS AN ORIGINAL ORDER OF SERVICE OF THE SAS FUNERAL FOR JOHN McALEESE ALONG WITH SOME INFORMATIVE BACKGROUND INFORMATION AND INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOOTAGE .
RIP JOHN McALEESE (25 April 1949 – 26 August 2011)
BELOW IS AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE JOHN McALEESE HAND SIGNED ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH (SIGNED AS JOHN MAC ) . ALSO SIGNED BY PETE WINNER (AS SOLDIER I ) … AND PETE SCHOLEY . THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS THE THEN PRIME MINISTER – MARGARET THATCHER WITH THREE UN-NAMED MEMBERS OF THE SAS OUTSIDE THE SAS “KILLING HOUSE” IN 1980 SHORTLY AFTER THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE, NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AS PART OF THE “SAS -WHO DARES WINS” EXHIBITION
BELOW IS THE ORIGINAL METROPOLITAN POLICE FORENSIC EXHIBIT IDENTIFICATION TAG (FORM 420) THAT WAS ATTACHED TO THE WEAPON FIRED BY SAS TROOPER- JOHN McALEESE DURING THE IRANIAN EMBASSY SIEGE ON THE 5TH MAY 1980. PERSONALLY SIGNED BY BOTH HIM AND THE INVESTIGATING OFFICERS WHO WERE HANDED ALL THE USED WEAPONS AFTER THE SUCCESSFUL OPERATION . NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AS PART OF THE “SAS -WHO DARES WINS” EXHIBITION
FREEDOM Honour for SAS HERO
SAS hero John McAleese, who was involved in the dramatic raid that ended the 1980 siege on the Iranian Embassy in London, has died, the Foreign Office confirmed.
Published on Thursday 1 September 2011 14:23
an UNSUNG hero is finally to be honoured by his home town. John McAleese, the SAS legend from Laurieston who led the dramatic raid on the Iranian embassy in London more than 30 years ago, died in Greece last Friday. Now there are moves to posthumously award him the Freedom of Falkirk, an honour most recently given to servicemen and women from the Second World War. However, the priority for his grief-stricken family is to bring the former soldier’s body home to allow the funeral to take place. Last night (Wednesday), his twin brother Billy (62) said: “We don’t know when we’ll get him back. Apparently it costs £20,000 and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He added that he was still struggling to come to terms with the loss of his twin, who was born 20 minutes after him. Billy said: “My son got a text message from John’s daughter Hayley and told me. I still can’t believe it.” The pair were brought up, along with older sister Eleanor, in the family home in Livingston Drive by parents Bill and Grace. They went to Laurieston Primary then Graeme High School. John had a variety of jobs as a teenager, including at Grangemouth Docks and the British Aluminium. A former Army cadet, he joined the Royal Engineers in 1970, serving around the world for over 23 years. He spent 17 years with 22 SAS and was often seconded to protection duty, guarding prime ministers and royalty. But it was his major role in rescuing 19 hostages in 1980 that put him in the spotlight. Days earlier, six armed men had taken the hostages and demanded the release of political prisoners. The world watched as the events unfolded in dramatic TV coverage. Then a Lance Corporal, John was in full view on the balcony, laying the explosive charge and leaping back as the blast blew in the windows. Billy said: “I saw it on TV and, although they were masked, I knew it was him. I phoned his wife to ask where he was and she said he was on holiday in London but I knew that wasn’t true. “He didn’t talk a lot about what he did, he couldn’t. John got the Military Medal while in Northern Ireland but I never heard why.” After leaving the Army, John worked as a security consultant and in 2003 co-presented a BBC TV programme ‘The SAS: Are You Tough Enough?’ However, two years ago he was back in the spotlight but in tragic circumstances. His son Paul, a sergeant in the 2nd Battalion the Rifles, was killed in Afghanistan. Announcing her father’s death, daughter Hayley (28) said she believed that he had died of a broken heart on the eve of the anniversary of Paul being killed. Married twice, John is also survived by son Kieran and step-daughter Jessica. Announcing plans for the Falkirk honour, Provost Pat Reid said: “He was very much an unsung hero and it would be appropriate for us to confer this honour, the highest the district can give, to mark his courage.
PLEASE NOTE FOR THE RECORD : THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL OR IT’S OWNER ARE NOT AFFILIATED IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM TO ANY POLITCALLY MOTIVATED, EXTREMIST, THE ESTABLISHMENT, OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS, CLUBS, ETC, ETC….
WE ARE SIMPLY A DARK TOURISM ATTRACTION THAT TOUCHES UPON TABOO, THOUGH HOPEFULLY HISTORICALLY EDUCATIONAL SUBJECT MATTERS … THAT OTHER MUSEUMS OR VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE NOT COVER …….
Above : Three IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar 6 March 1988
On a quiet Sunday afternoon in Gibraltar, the SAS shot dead three members of the Provisional IRA who were planning to bomb a military parade on the peninsula. They were unarmed. ‘Operation Flavius’ attracted much controversy, including allegations of a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy. It began a period of 14 days that was to prove one the darkest of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Photo: IRA members fire a volley of shots for three comrades killed in Gibraltar
DEATH ON THE ROCK
HERE IS A BRIEF INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY AND INFORMATIVE INSIGHT INTO THE STILL, SO CLAIMED, CONTROVERSIAL SAS EXECUTIONS OF THREE SUSPECTED IRA TERRORISTS DURING OPERATION FLAVIUS IN GIBRALTAR 1988
A SUBJECT MATTER THAT IS FEATURED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL WITHIN OUR “TERRORISM AND COUNTER TERRORISM EXHIBITION “
Operation Flaviuswas the name given to an operation by a Special Air Service (SAS) team in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988 tasked to prevent a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb attack. The IRA Active Service Unit‘s (ASU) members, Danny McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, conspired to detonate a car bomb where a military band assembled for the weekly changing of the guard at the governor’s residence. Although the operation was meant to be an arrest operation,[ it ended with all three members of the ASU dead.
BELOW ARE SOME VINTAGE AND HISTORIC NEWS FOOTAGE VIDEOS RELATING TO THE SAS EXECUTIONS OF THE THREE SUSPECTED IRA TERRORISTS
In addition to Bravo Two Zero he has written two other autobiographies and a number of fiction books.
Andy McNab, Chris Ryan and Bravo Two Zero feature here at The Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean Jail within our SAS Who Dares Wins Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) exhibition, so if you are in the area please do drop by and pay a visit .
AN INTERVIEW WITH SAS HERO ANDY McNAB ABOUT BRAVO TWO ZERO.
BELOW IS A PICTURE OF THE ORIGINAL BRAVO TWO ZERO PATROL MEMBERS
(Bravo Two Zero patrol members. From left to right: Ryan, Consiglio, MacGown (obscured), Lane, Coburn (obscured), McNab (obscured), Phillips, Pring (obscured).
Trooper ‘Mike “Kiwi”Coburn’ (pseudonym) former NZSAS Captured by the enemy, later released. Author of Soldier Five (2004). Referred to as ‘Mark the Kiwi’ in the books.
BELOW IS A BRILLIANT BATTLE SCENE CLIP FROM THE BRAVO TWO ZERO FILM STARRING SEAN BEAN AS ANDY McNAB
BELOW IS A BRIEF GALLERY OF SOME OF THE PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION ITEMS FROM ANDY McNAB , CHRIS RYAN AND OTHER SAS MEMBERS NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE SAS EXHIBITION WHICH ARE FEATURED IN AND AMONGST VARIOUS OTHER BRAVO TWO ZERO RELATED EXHIBIT ITEMS .
FORMER SAS BRAVO TWO ZERO HERO CHRIS RYAN SEEN PICTURED HERE WITH ANDY JONES FROM THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL
BELOW IS A HAND SIGNED PICTURE OF SAS HERO CHRIS RYAN
HAND SIGNED BY CHRIS RYAN ,
BELOW IS A LINK TO THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON THE COVERING OF SAS MISSION IN IRAQ DURING THE FIRST GULF WAR- BRAVO TWO ZERO
JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP …. ONE OF THE CRUELEST AND MOST EVIL OF THEM ALL … AS FEATURED HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK … “LEST WE FORGET”
BELOW ARE TWO INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY INSIGHT FOOTAGE VIDEOS OF THE HORRORS WITHIN THE CAMP . NO WORDS THOUGH WE ARE SURE YOU WILL AGREE, THESE IMAGES TELL A THOUSAND OR MORE UNTOLD STORIES .
The Ustaše (pronounced [ûstaʃe]), also known as “Ustashe”, “Ustashas”, and “Ustashi”, were members of the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Croatian: Ustaša – Hrvatski revolucionarni pokret), a Croatianfascist and terrorist organization active, in its original form, between 1929 until 1945. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II in Yugoslavia
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …
Witness drawing of the sboskek wrist knife used to quickly dispatch prisoners at Jasenovac
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
Srbosjek (literally “Serb cutter” in Croatian and Serbian, often referred to as “cutthroat”) is the colloquial serbo-Croatian term for a type of knife used for killing …
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
ORIGINAL “SRBOSJEK” SERB THROAT CUTTER AS WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AT JASENOVAC CONCENTRATION CAMP DURING THE WW2 NAZI HOLOCAUST YEARS NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
Heavy long handled wooden-mallet/club-used-to-crush-the-skulls-of-prisoners-at-jasenovac
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
HEAVY DUTY LONG HANDLED MALLET/HAMMER OF THE KIND THAT WAS USED BY THE USTASHA BLACK LEGION AS A PREFFERED FORM OF KILLING INMATES AT THE WW2 CROATIAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS …RATHER THAN GASSING THEIR VICTIMS
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT AND UNIFORM CAP BADGE
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM CAP BADGE
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM CAP BADGE
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION BELT BUCKLE REMNANT
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA
GROUND DUG ORIGINAL USTASHA BLACK LEGION UNIFORM INSIGNIA
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … LEATHER BELT COMPLETE WITH IT’S ORIGINAL BUCKLE , ALONG THE TOP RIM ARE HAND SCRATCHED NOTCH MARKS PURPORTING TO BE NUMBERS OF KILLS BY THE OWNER OF THE BELT
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … HANDMADE LADY SIZED USTASHA DECORATIVE RING WITH THE LETTERS A.M. ETCHED TO THE SIDE
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA CAP BADGE
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA CAP BADGE
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .
ORIGINAL “GROUND DUG ” FROM A USTASHA EXECUTION SITE … A USTASHA SOLDIER’S HANDMADE DECORATIVE RING MADE FROM THE REMNANTS OF A PIECE OF KRUPP BERNDORF CUTLERY WITH AN ADDED USTASHA EMBLEM .
During the Holocaust, one group of killers stood out as more vicious, murderous, and bloodthirsty than all others. The Ustasha of Yugoslavia was a Muslim-Catholic alliance of Nazi killers so beastly that even Nazi officials in Berlin were horrified. The Ustasha and three related crack divisions of Arab-Nazi Waffen SS comprised of tens of thousands of Muslim volunteers and terrorized people of all faiths in Yugoslavia. In large measure, these murder machines emerged through the efforts of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. The grand mufti was on a mission to accelerate the extermination of all Jews everywhere. His partner was Adolf Hitler. The epic story of this alliance is one that began in Jerusalem, traveled to Baghdad, culminated in the Balkans, and ultimately spread across all Europe. In many ways, the scene was set centuries ago by the Medina Extermination of 627. Medina was a largely Jewish city. When its 600 or so Jews refused to convert to the new Muslim religion, the Prophet Muhammad murdered them in a protracted ceremony, beheading the Jewish faithful one by one. This massacre became a glorious iconic event in Islamic history. After Medina, the Islamic Conquest swept across the Middle East and North Africa. In about 700, the Pact of Umar declared that Jews and Christians under Muslim control could continue as non-Muslims, but only as dhimmis – that is, second-class citizens reviled for their existence and denied many ordinary rights. Throughout the ages while dwelling in the various realms of the Muslim world, Jews and Christians were either allowed to excel and thrive or were brutally repressed and persecuted, depending on the decade and territory. But the context of their existence – whether successful or subjugated – was always as second-class citizens. Islam’s many anti-Jewish mandates were not just ancient textual relics but were often quoted by Islamic leaders throughout the centuries. When the League of Nations, Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and finally Turkey endorsed a Jewish homeland, each with a formal resolution resembling that of the Balfour Declaration, it ignited a seismic outrage among Arabs. The very thought of Jews living as equals was anathema to Palestinian Arabs. From 1920, their regular rallying call was Itbach al Yahood! – Slaughter the Jews. With knives and rifles, in small spontaneous groups and organized mobs, Arabs murdered Palestinian Jews, burned their Torahs and laid waste to their synagogues as Jews tried to rebuild a homeland. Indeed, in 1929, when Jews sat down while they prayed at the Western Wall, violating Islamic prohibitions against Jews sitting there – a mob of Arabs swarmed over Hebron sadistically killing dozens. The Jewish baker was baked in his own oven. A Jewish scholar’s brain was extricated and used as a ball. In 1937, the Peel Report concluded that two states should be created, one Arab and one Jewish, living side by side. But the Muslim world would not tolerate the notion of coexistence with Jews as equals. “Our hatred for the Jews dates from God’s condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa [Jesus], and their subsequent rejection later of His chosen Prophet [Muhammad] . Verily the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe this for a Muslim to kill a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty. What more then can a Muslim want in this hard world?” These were the words of the king of Saudi Arabia during a lecture to the British Foreign Ministry in 1937. The grand mufti of Jerusalem was the leader of the Palestinians. The Nazi-Arab alliance had been aggressively sought by the Arabs of Palestine since the Third Reich’s first moments in 1933. After the Peel Report, the mufti and his loyal followers launched a murderous, non-stop insurrection known as the Arab Revolt. When the British tried to arrest him, the mufti fled to Iraq where he helped foment a coup. In Iraq, the mufti found a virulent and widely embraced Arab-Nazi movement. Mein Kampf had been serialized in Arabic. Hitler Youth-style Arab regiments were well organized. On June 1-2, 1941 – after a failed Nazi-Arab attempt to exterminate the Jews of Iraq – Baghdad Nazis, the police and national military units went on a two-day murder spree. Once the British finally restored order, the mufti fled again, this time to Iran where another failed Nazi takeover was thwarted. From Iran, the mufti and his cohorts escaped to Berlin to meet Hitler personally. In Berlin, a pact was sealed to provide Arab oil and battlefield military assistance sufficient to help the Nazi push into Russia in exchange for recognizing an Arab national state and exterminating the Jews. Arab military units formed from Paris to Palestine. Arabs and Muslims worldwide, on the radio and in newspapers, incessantly and openly called for the extermination of the Jews. The rallying cry was: “In Heaven, Allah is your master; on Earth, Adolf Hitler.” When Heinrich Himmler needed to fight the partisans of Yugoslavia to protect German supply lines, the mufti visited the region and helped organize tens of thousands of Muslims and Arabs into three Waffen SSdivisions. Those three divisions – the Handschar, the Skandebeg, and the Kama – formed artillery brigades, transport battalions, infantry companies, and fought a bloody trench and mountain warfare against the partisans in Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, and the other Balkan territories. * * * * * Concomitantly, a Nazi murder militia known as Ustasha was created from a legion of Catholic and Muslim killers. The history is complex. In the Croatian maelstrom of ethnic and religious hatred, steered by Nazi mentors and puppet masters, Catholic Croats ironically decreed that all Muslims were Croats. This enabled the Catholic Croats to establish a majority in their enlarged territorial domain. That enlarged Independent State of Croatia was known in the dialect as Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or the NDH. The Independent State of Croatia was in fact a bi-ethnic murder regime sworn to exterminate the millions of Yugoslavians who were neither Catholic nor Muslim through the Ustasha. Although Muslims were a minority in the NDH, the Bosniak Muslim faction and the Croatian Catholics jointly ruled and jointly murdered. The NDH’s fascist extremist president was a staunch Hitler ally and former Jesuit seminarian, Ante Pavelić. His official title was poglavnik, a Croatian word that approximates der Führer.The vice president was Muslim Džafer-beg Kulenović, previously president of the Yugoslav Moslem Organization, a Bosniak nationalist organization. The Croatian minister of culture and education was Mile Budak, a rabid Catholic-Nazi who propagated the axiom of killing one-third, converting one-third and expelling one-third of all Serbs. Budak and other Catholic Croats believed Muslims were actually descendants of the ancient Bogomil people who had inhabited the Croatian lands centuries earlier. As a leader in forging the Muslim-Catholic alliance, Budak enthusiastically proclaimed in 1941, “We Croats are happy and proud of our [Christian] faith, but we must be conscious of the fact that our Muslim brothers are the purest ofCroats.” He elaborated in a speech that the NDH was “Christian. [But] it is also a Muslim state where our people are of the Muslim religion.” In July 1941, Budak openly declared that the new state must exterminate “foreign elements,” that is, Jews and Gypsies as well as the larger enemy, Orthodox Serbs. Budak hid nothing about his plans. “The basis for the Ustasha movement is religion,” announced Budak. “For minorities such as Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have 3 million bullets.” To cement the Muslim and Catholic killing coalition, NDH president Pavelić converted a local Zagreb museum to a huge and impressive mosque, adding surrounding minarets to its modern architecture, and naming the mosque after himself. Numerous NDH ministries were controlled or headed by Muslims. Pavelić even donned a Muslim fez to show his solidarity. Muslims were invited to join the barbaric Croatian Peasant Party and did so in significant numbers. When Muslims served in the Ustasha First Regiment, known as Black Legion, their black uniforms were the same as their Catholic co-killers. Senior officers were dressed in identical garb. Ibrahim Pirić-Pjanić and Memesaga Dzubur led their own local Ustasha-affiliated contingents. Muslim Ustasha Muhamed Hadžiefendić led his own militia in Tuzla. Hadžiefendić’s militia became so strong that Bosniaks wanted it to operate autonomously in Muslim areas of Bosnia. The Diet legislature, which passed a sequence of genocidal decrees, included 11 Muslims specifically appointed for that purpose. These decrees included outlawing Serbian and Jewish existence in Croatia, the looting of Serbian and Jewish property, and the systematic transfer to Serbian and Jewish citizens into death camps and merciless killing fields. Catholic priests commonly operated the concentration camps, enforcing the most degrading of slaughter rituals. In Sarajevo, most of the looted and confiscated property of victims went to Muslims, who raced to grab Jewish and Serbian assets before their Catholic partners. Under Croatian decrees, Jews were compelled to wear yellow Star-of-David armbands and back patches marked with a “Z” for Zidov, the Croatian word for Jew. Muslims plundered and decimated the Great Sephardic Synagogue in Sarajevo and the centuries-old synagogue in Dubrovnik. When Muslim families were moved out of their villages near the battle lines, the Ustasha evicted Jews from their homes so the Croatian Muslims could take their place. When Jews fled the November 1941 mass roundups in Sarajevo, preparatory to planned extermination, a number of them escaped only by disguising themselves under Muslim veils. At the same time, many of the Jews who did survive the Jew-hunts did so by appealing to merciful neighbors in the Muslim quarter that took them in and hid them until they could escape safely. Many Muslims in Sarajevo rejected the Bosniak Ustasha horror and tried – in vain – to protest to their co-religionists. Serbs suffered enormously. As Serbs were being forcibly converted to Catholicism, some 450 Serbian Orthodox churches were demolished and their religious icons defiled. Orthodox priests were gruesomely tortured and their families shipped to concentration camps where they were subjected to every inhumanity. * * * * * Pavelić declared early on, “This is now the Ustasha and Independent State of Croatia. It must be cleansed of all Serbs and Jews. There is no room for any of them here. Not a stone upon a stone will remain of what once belonged to them.” He later said, “The Jews will be liquidated within a very short time.” To this end, more than 20 Ustasha concentration camps were established for the killing process, manned by combined Catholic and Muslim forces. The most notorious of these camps was the hellish complex known as Jasenovac, considered by many to be more sadistic than Auschwitz. The Ustasha’s barbaric methods for exterminating Jews and Serbs included sadistic group killing by cracking heads open with hammers until the cranial cavity was exposed. That was for adults. Children were commonly marched into the forest where their heads were crushed with long mallets. Sometimes children were thrown live into flaming furnaces. Decapitation or dismemberment with giant lumber saws was frequent. All too often, these Ustasha atrocities were not committed in fits of mad rage, but for sport, with the gleeful perpetrators smiling for the camera over the helpless victim waiting to be brutalized. Mass throat-slittings at great velocity were achieved with a small hand blade wrapped tight to the wrist and dubbed the Serbcutter. One night, guards at Jasenovac wagered among themselves to see who could cut the most throats with their Serbcutters. Guard Petar Brzica, a Franciscan priest, was determined to prove his skill, which he did by slicing the throats of an estimated 1,360 inmates. Guard Mile Friganović was close behind the winner, murdering about 1,100 Serbs that night. But Friganović was also known for an unspeakable incident in which an old man was asked to shout a salute to Croat president Ante Pavelić. When the old man hesitated, Friganović systematically and gleefully cut off his ears first, then his nose and tongue, after which he gouged out his eyes and then extracted the victim’s heart – and only after all that did Friganović end it all by slitting the prisoner’s throat. Friganović called the experience one of “ecstasy.” Groups of shivering Jewish children were brought into a camp one day. For sport, one guard began spinning a child above his head as the other guards slashed at him with their bayonets. Eventually, the guard was left with nothing but the child’s hand as a trophy. Other Ustasha trophies included eyeball collections, stored in wicker baskets for show and sometimes worn strung up in necklaces. NDH president Pavelić himself once showed a journalist a wicker basket filled with some 40 pounds of eyeballs. Pavelić joked that he could make an oyster stew with them. “A good Ustasha,” Pavelić told his troops, “is he who can use his knife to cut a child from the womb of its mother.” Cruel and inhumane as the Nazis were, they retreated in wide-eyed astonishment when they learned of the joint Catholic-Muslim Ustasha atrocities. German General Edmund Glaise von Horstenau, commanding officer of the region headquartered in Zagreb, reported back to Berlin, “According to reliable reports from countless German military and civil observers during the last few weeks, the Ustasha have gone raging mad.” He added: “The most wicked [concentration camp] of all must be Jasenovac, where no ordinary mortal is allowed to peer in.” Hermann Naubacher, Hitler’s personal assistant for the Balkans, called the Ustasha exterminations “a crusade that belongs among the most brutal mass-murder undertakings in the entire history of the world.” Naubacher somberly added, “According to the reports that have reached me, my estimate is that the number of those defenseless slaughtered is some three-quarters of a million.” Eventually, the Nazis fell. Their allies in the Ustasha and the three Waffen SS divisions faced postwar justice in many cases. But too many melted into the turbulent history of the Cold War. The mufti escaped and became a revered icon of the Palestinian people. The legacy of Islamic and Arab hate that spurred the Farhud burned broad enough to help Hitler get ever closer to his goal of exterminating all Jews. But the Third Reich fell. And those in the Arab-Nazi movement went on to form the post-war geopolitical Middle East that prevails in the current century. Edwin Black is the author of “IBM and the Holocaust.” This article is adapted from his just-released book “The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance During the Holocaust” (Dialog, 2010). He will lecture on the topic on January 31 for the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.
ORIGINAL PAITNING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN, HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL IN AND AMONGST AN ARRAY OF POLICE MEMORABILIA.
THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE COWARDLY AND EVIL FATAL SHOOTING OF WPC YVONNE FLETCHER IN 1984
HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL WE FEATURE MANY UK HEROINES AND HERO’S OF OUR BRITISH POLICE FORCE , UK SPECIAL FORCES , EMERGENCY SERVICES AND MANY OTHERS .
HOPEFULLY PROVIDING VISITORS WITH A HISTORICAL AND HOPEFULLY EDUCATIONAL INSIGHT INTO THOSE THAT SEEK TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY .
Now the hunt for justice begins: Libya’s secret files on Yvonne Fletcher, Lockerbie bombing and IRA weapons to be made public ‘within months’
Murdered: Policewoman Yvonne Fletcher was killed outside Libyan Embassy in London in 1984
THE FUNERAL OF WPC YVONNE FLETCHER
PHOTO SHOWS THE AFTERMATH OF THE MURDER SCENE AND FATAL SHOOTING OF WPC YVONNE FLETCHER WITH HER POLICE HAT SEEN HERE IN AND AMONGST SOME OF HER COLLEAGUES POLICE HELMETS .
The alleged killers of murdered WPC Yvonne Fletcher’s will face justice in Libya, the country’s leading diplomat in the UK has promised.
Mahmud Nacua also said that ‘secret files’ on the 1984 murder of WPC Fletcher – as well as on the Lockerbie bombing and other Gaddafi-sponsored assassinations in London – will soon be made public.
British diplomats are demanding that the National Transitional Council works to solve the murder of WPC Fletcher, who was shot outside the Libyan embassy in London.
Only one of the men allegedly involved in the killing of Yvonne Fletcher is still believed to be alive.
Former embassy worker Matouk Mohammed Matouk was captured this year, according to Libya’s acting deputy prime minister Ali Tarhouni, but was then reported to have escaped.
MPs in Britain are demanding that he be extradited to Britain, but Mr Nacua said Libyan police and courts must be responsible for bringing him – and any accomplices – to justice.
He said: ‘When our country is stable all the files of the crimes that have been committed by Gaddafi will open. Everything will be known to the world what happened in the time of Gaddafi.
‘They will face justice in Libya, not in Britain. Libya is an independent country, it has its constitution, it has its law, its lawyers.’
The files will be made public within the next few months as the new government settles down, it is understood.
Yesterday Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Gaddafi’s death had ‘brought closer’ action to put the murderer on trial.
He had raised the WPC Fletcher case on Monday during talks in Tripoli with NTC chairman Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil.
Mr Hague said: ‘They fully understand that it is very important to us to deal with the tragic issues left behind by Colonel Gaddafi in our country, on top of all the damage that he did to Libya.
‘But as they often point out they need to be able to form a government and have functioning ministries in order to be able to do that. These events yesterday bring closer the day that we can get all of that.’
Wounded: Three officers desperately attempt first aid on W.P.C. Fletcher as she lies injure on the road outside the embassy
No-one has ever been charged over the death of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy . One of the men linked with the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher in London in 1984 has been found dead in Libya, according to Libyan opposition officials.
Abdulqadir al-Baghdadi had been named as a suspected “co-conspirator” in the officer’s killing in documents handed to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK wanted to know “a great deal more” about what had happened to him.
The UK is seeking permission for UK investigators to visit Libya.
No-one has ever been charged with the murder of PC Fletcher, who was shot while policing a demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in London.
Mr al-Baghdadi is one of three former diplomatic staff alleged to have been involved in the killing, according to a witness statement given to UK prosecutors – details of which emerged on Saturday.
‘Vendetta’
The account named Mr al-Baghdadi and Matouk Mohammed Matouk as “co-conspirators” who could potentially face prosecution, while alleging that it had been Abdulmagid Salah Ameri, a more junior diplomat at the time, who had actually fired the gun.
All diplomatic staff claimed diplomatic immunity after the murder and were deported.
Amid renewed efforts to find PC Fletcher’s killers, officials from the National Transitional Council – the body recognised by the UK as Libya’s sole governing authority – announced that one of the alleged suspects was dead.
“We can confirm today the death of Abdulqadir al-Baghdadi who is the head of the Revolutionary Guards. He was a minister and he was also accused of shooting Yvonne Fletcher in London in 1984,” deputy head of Tripoli’s council, Usama El-Abed, said.
“We just found the body and he was shot in the head.”
He suggested he had been killed as a result of an “inside vendetta” within groups loyal to the deposed former leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The Foreign Office said it could not confirm the death and was seeking more details.
“I don’t want to prejudge immediately what has been announced,” Mr Hague told BBC News.
“Of course, we will want to know a great deal more about what the NTC has said has happened in this case. I am sure the police will want to know what has happened and assess themselves whether it affects their investigation in any way.”
Extradition issue
One senior NTC figure recently appeared to rule out the possibility of any Libyan being extradited to the UK to face charges in connection with the murder, saying it was not allowed under Libyan law.
But Mr Hague insisted that the NTC had offered to co-operate fully with the police inquiry.
“We, in the Foreign Office, will assist the police in pursuing the investigation in the future, including continuing it in Libya itself,” he added. “The change that is happening in Libya may give additional opportunities to take this investigation forward.”
Downing Street has said it would raise the issue with the NTC and hoped an agreement could be reached on granting UK police investigators access to Libya soon.
Prime Minister David Cameron is due to hold talks with members of the NTC in Paris on Thursday as part of an Anglo-French summit designed to pave the way for it to formally assume power in Libya.
The agenda for the summit was one of a range of issues discussed by ministers in a meeting of the National Security Council, also including efforts to track down Col Gaddafi and a full-scale humanitarian aid drive once fighting has ceased.
Rebel leaders have warned that unless troops loyal to Col Gaddafi in the city of Sirte – his birthplace and one remaining stronghold – surrender by Saturday, they will use force.
Yvonne Fletcher
Murdered PC Yvonne Fletcher’s suspected killer will not be given up by Libyan rebels – despite William Hague insisting that he will.
Junior diplomat Abdulmagid Salah Ameri has emerged as the prime suspect in the 1984 killing of unarmed Yvonne.
She was 25 when she was gunned down outside the Libyan embassy in London.
Painter and decorator David Robertson claimed he had seen Ameri pointing a gun out of the embassy, according to a previously secret report which was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service in 2007.
The revelation brought hope that Yvonne’s killer could finally be brought to justice but members of Libya’s National Transitional Council insisted they would block any attempt to extradite him.
Hassan al-Sagheer, a legal expert and member of the NTC, said that the rebels did not want to hand anyone over.
Mr al-Sagheer said: “Libya has never extradited or handed over its citizens to a foreign country. We shall continue with this principle.”
Fellow NTC member Fawzi al-Ali added: “According to our laws, no one can be handed over unless there are previous agreements or special arrangements to do so.”
However the Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday played down the rebuff, which is highly embarrassing for the Government after the help Britain has given the rebels.
Mr Hague said NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil had promised on his recent UK visit that he would help bring the police officer’s killer to justice.
The minister claimed: “When Chairman Jalil of the National Transitional Council was with us in London in May he committed himself and the council to co-operating fully.
“It is true, it is a fact, there is no extradition treaty with Libya, but we look to them to co-operate fully. So I would not take what has been reported today as the last word.”
Mr Hague said that the ongoing police investigation into Yvonne’s death made it “quite difficult” for him to comment any further.
“The police investigation has full diplomatic support and NTC have promised full co-operation,” he added.