Soldier L: The Embassy Siege by Shaun Clarke

Author:Shaun Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1993-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

9

Day Four began with a conversation between Salim and the police on the field telephone, during which the former poured out his frustrations at the lack of progress in negotiations and insisted that because of ‘British deceit’ the British hostages would now be the last to be freed. Again he insisted on speaking once more to the BBC and when again this was refused, he said that a hostage would have to die.

The police knew that inside the Embassy, as one terrorist stood guard over the hostages, trying to stay awake, the others, distracted by the sound of drilling as more probes and bugs were inserted in the walls, were prowling restlessly, guns lifted, expecting an attack through wall or ceiling at any time.

On the roof, the members of the SAS’s Red Team were quietly checking that their ropes were still in position. Satisfied, they tiptoed away, clambered onto the adjoining college’s roof, then made their way back down to the FHA, where the mood was increasingly tense.

‘He’s run his string out to the limit,’ Sergeant Inman said, ‘and it’s going to break any minute now.’

‘Then his kite flies away,’ Baby Face said with a faint but deadly smile. ‘We won’t have too long to wait.’

‘Dead right,’ Inman said.

The demands and offers were repeated throughout the day as the police played a cat-and-mouse game with the terrorists. Because they knew that the terrorists would be listening to the news on the radio, they called a press conference at which they avoided the word ‘terrorist’ and referred instead to ‘hostage takers’. Eventually, however, Salim’s threat to kill a hostage compelled them to bring a BBC news desk deputy editor, Tony Crabb, to the Embassy to talk to the terrorist leader.

Speaking from an upstairs window on behalf of the latter, one of the BBC hostages, Sim Harris, asked Crabb why he had not broadcast Salim’s statements. When Crabb blandly replied that there had been a ‘misunderstanding’, Harris replied: ‘You must put out the right statement; otherwise everyone here could be killed.’

Before Crabb could reply, two other hostages, PC Lock and the Syrian journalist, Mustafa Karkouti, appeared at the window to tell Crabb and the police negotiator that Salim was in deadly earnest about his threat to start the killing.

‘All right,’ the negotiator finally said. ‘I’ll personally take down Salim’s statement and make sure it’s correct.’

When the negotiator had taken out his notebook and pen and was ready to take down what Salim said, the latter, standing behind Mustafa Karkouti and aiming a pistol at his head, relayed his statement through the Syrian. Talking from the shadows behind Karkouti, he repeated his personal details, then made his statement, which the police officer carefully wrote down, word for word.

‘One: We swear to God and to the British people and Government that no danger whatsoever will be inflicted on the British and non-Iranian hostages if the British Government and the British police don’t kid the group and don’t subject the life of the hostages and

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