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The_Info_Web/60 - PLACES/LANDMARKS/Syrian Embassy in London.md

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tags category summary updated relations
Organization
Government
International
Syria
UK
ElAlPlot
Hindawi
BenMenashe
AngloSyrianRelations
Embassy
Landmark The Syrian Embassy in London was named in the 1986 British statement that broke relations with Syria over the El Al bomb plot, which Ari Ben-Menashe attributed to Rafi Eitan. 2026-10-15
type with reverse role fn
head_of Loutof Haydar true ambassador to the United Kingdom, told on October 24, 1986 to close the embassy and leave the country within 14 days 1
type with role start fn
participant_in El Al Heathrow bomb plot embassy premises and staff used for Hindawi after the failed attempt, per the 1986 Commons statement and trial evidence 1986-04-17 1

The Syrian Embassy in London was the diplomatic mission of Syria in the United Kingdom, located in Belgrave Square. Its staff and premises figure in the case of Nezar Hindawi, who was convicted at the Old Bailey on October 24, 1986, of attempting to place a bomb aboard an El Al aircraft at Heathrow Airport on April 17 of that year. The same afternoon, Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe told the House of Commons that Britain was breaking diplomatic relations with Syria.1

The October 1986 breach

Howe told the Commons that the ambassador, Loutof Haydar, had been informed of the decision that morning and was told to close his embassy and leave the country within 14 days. The British embassy in Damascus would also be closed, and Syrian Arab Airlines aircraft, crew, passengers and baggage would be subject to stricter searches in London.1

Howe described the Syrian role in strong terms. "There is conclusive evidence of Syrian official involvement with Hindawi," he said, and the Syrian claim that its staff had dealt with Hindawi "throughout as a bona fide journalist" was "frankly incredible." He listed three facts he called undisputed: Hindawi travelled on an official Syrian passport in a false name, two of his visa applications were backed by official notes from the Syrian Foreign Ministry, and he met Dr. Haydar in the embassy after the bomb was discovered. He added that the government had "independent evidence that the Syrian ambassador was personally involved several months before the commission of the offence in securing for Hindawi the sponsorship of the Syrian intelligence authorities," and that during his detention Hindawi had tried to reach Syrian intelligence officials in Damascus for help in securing his release.1

The Ronald Reagan administration responded the same day. A White House statement said "We support the British decision. Our Ambassador is being withdrawn from Syria."2 The Wall Street Journal reported on October 27 that the deadline for closing the Syrian embassy in London had later been shortened to seven days, after Syria announced that it was closing the British embassy in Damascus.3 On November 14, 1986, the White House announced further measures, citing the Hindawi conviction as proof that the Syrian government had been directly involved in the attempted bombing. The measures included controls on exports of aircraft and related goods, the termination of Export-Import Bank programs for Syria, and notice that the United States would terminate its air transport agreement with Syria. The statement noted that Syria had been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979.4

On October 28, 1986, Howe reported to the Commons on the Foreign Affairs Council he had chaired in Luxembourg the previous day. He said he had given the Community ministers "a full briefing on the Hindawi case" and presented "the conclusive evidence of Syrian official involvement"; that the Greek representative could not associate himself with any measure against Syria; and that the other ministers undertook that no partner would accept as a diplomat any of the Syrians expelled from London in connection with the case. The ministers were to consider on November 10 arms sales to Syria, high-level visits, "the activities of Syrian embassies in the member states" and security arrangements for Syrian Arab Airlines. A Member asked what the government would do about "the arsenal of terrorist weaponry which is in the Syrian embassy here"; Howe replied that the diplomatic bag questions were under consideration by the British and Italian governments.5

Hindawi at the embassy

Howe told the Commons that evidence at the trial showed Hindawi had spent some time in hotel accommodation reserved for Syrian Arab Airlines crew, and that he spent the night after the attempt in Syrian embassy accommodation, where hair clippings and hair dye were found. He also said that in May 1986, after Hindawi's arrest, the government had demanded the withdrawal of three Syrian embassy attachés, and that the Syrian government declined to waive their diplomatic immunity so that police could question them.1

The 2011 High Court judgment on Hindawi's parole summarizes the plot as carried out "at the instigation of the Government of Syria and with the assistance of its officials, including diplomats in London," and describes Hindawi as "an agent of the Syrian Government." It records that Hindawi was convicted at the Old Bailey on October 24, 1986 and sentenced to 45 years, and that Lord Lane, Lord Chief Justice, dismissing his application for leave to appeal against sentence, called the crime "about as foul and as horrible a crime as could possibly be imagined."6

The account in the book by Patrick Seale, drawn from the trial and from British and Syrian sources, has Hindawi going to the Syrian embassy in Belgrave Square after the bomb was found and telling Dr. Lutfallah Haydar that he was in trouble. Embassy security men took him to their lodgings in West Kensington, where they cut and dyed his hair. Hindawi then went to the London Visitors Hotel in Holland Park, where his brother, a clerk in the medical section of the Qatar embassy, persuaded him to give himself up.7

A CIA note of November 5, 1986 records that after El Al security discovered the bomb, Hindawi went to the Syrian Embassy, and that the ambassador told an embassy employee to accompany him to a Syrian safehouse in West Kensington.8

David B. Ottaway reported in the Washington Post in June 1986. Citing an unnamed Reagan administration source, he gave two accounts. In the first, Hafez al-Assad had told King Hussein that Syrian intelligence had contacts with Hindawi but regarded him as too unstable and unreliable to deal with. In the second, embassy officials in London refused to take Hindawi in when he came to the embassy after the failed attempt. The same report said that the three Syrian diplomats had refused to waive their immunity and would agree to questioning only inside the Syrian embassy.9

In the Commons on October 24, a Member asked whether "part of the plot involved Mr. Hindawi walking through the front door of the Syrian embassy in Belgrave square."1

Ben-Menashe's account

Ari Ben-Menashe wrote in 1992 that the 1986 attempt was "a cold, calculated plan conceived by Rafi Eitan to discredit the Syrians." In his account, Mohammed Radi Abdullah, a Jordanian army colonel who had emigrated to London, had been recruited in 1978 into an antiterrorist group in Israel run by Rafael Eitan, after receiving a £200,000 loan from an Israeli source. Ben-Menashe wrote that in 1986 Eitan met Radi at a secret meeting in Paris and told him he wanted to implicate the Syrian Embassy in London in terrorism and have all the Syrian diplomats thrown out of England.10

Ben-Menashe named Radi as Hindawi's cousin. He wrote that Radi, who was friendly with the Syrian Air Force intelligence attaché in London, offered Hindawi $50,000 with the words "This money I'm offering you ... is from our Syrian brothers on behalf of the Palestinians. We want to blow up a Zionist plane." Ben-Menashe also wrote that Hindawi was instructed to meet a Syrian intelligence officer at the embassy, which led him to believe his actions were for the Arab cause, and that Hindawi told the police a Syrian intelligence officer had asked him to do it. In Ben-Menashe's account, "In the El Al departure lounge, an Israeli security man dressed in casual clothes, the 'Palestinian cleaner', passed the girl the parcel." Seale places the handover at the Royal Garden Hotel.10

Of Radi, Ben-Menashe wrote: "Radi was not implicated. He was under MI-5 protection. As a result, Margaret Thatcher closed down the Syrian Embassy in London. Rafi Eitan had had his way, Hindawi was jailed for 45 years."10

Syrian involvement and the rival accounts

Seale wrote that "It is scarcely in doubt that a Syrian agency, most probably General Khuly's air force intelligence, was involved." He listed the evidence on which he relied. It included the official Syrian passport, Syrian Foreign Ministry support for two visa applications, the airline cover, a message from Dr. Haydar recommending Hindawi to Syrian intelligence that British intelligence had apparently intercepted in 1985, hair and dye traces in the security men's flat, and attempts to contact Damascus during the detention. Seale wrote that Assad and Prime Minister Kasm "knew nothing about the operation until they heard the news on the radio," which he called the considered judgment of American and European officials.11 He also wrote that General al-Khuly, head of Air Force Intelligence, was moved to deputy commander of the air force in October 1987, "in the wake of the Hindawi affair."12

Seale also wrote that Hindawi "was most probably an agent provocateur whose mission was to entrap the Syrian intelligence services so as to smear Syria as a terrorist state." He cited Ian Black of The Guardian, who was told by a senior Israeli security source that Israeli intelligence had received an advance general warning of an attack on El Al. Seale also reported a Syrian-Jordanian post-mortem on the family, which described them as Palestinians settled in Baqura with "a history of involvement with Mossad." According to that account, Israel used the threat that Hindawi's father would be sent back to Jordan to win Hindawi's cooperation.13

Seale reported that on October 20, 1986, Assad told Time (magazine) magazine that Israeli intelligence had planned the operation and arranged for it to be uncovered "at the plane's doorstep."11

On November 7, 1986, The Washington Times reported an interview with Jacques Chirac, who relayed what Helmut Kohl and Hans-Dietrich Genscher had concluded: that the London attempt was "a provocation organized jointly by Israel's Mossad intelligence service and renegade elements in Syrian President Hafez Assad's entourage." Chirac said the objective was to embarrass Assad, and that some of the Syrian agents might be manipulated by Assad's enemies.14

A June 1986 CIA Terrorism Review concluded that Syrian officials were "directly involved in the planning and execution of both the West Berlin and London operations." It described Hindawi and his brother, Ahmad Hasi, as "freelance terrorists" who had worked with Syrian officials.15

The 1990 restoration

On November 28, 1990, Douglas Hurd told the Commons in a statement on the Middle East: "We are now resuming relations with Syria with immediate effect." He said the heads of the interests sections in London and Damascus would be chargés d'affaires, pending the exchange of ambassadors when practicable. He cited Syrian assurances on the release of Western hostages in Lebanon and "confirmation that Syria rejects acts of international terrorism." He also said: "We have also had a confidential account of the Syrian position on the Hindawi affair. It has not been entirely easy, but I am glad that it has proved possible to overcome the differences between ourselves and Syria."16

In the same debate a Member asked whether it was "sad and cynical opportunism" to enter again into diplomatic relations with Syria, and argued that the government had pinpointed the person responsible for the Hindawi affair.16

The 2012 expulsion

On May 29, 2012, William Hague announced the expulsion of the Syrian chargé d'affaires, whom the Foreign Office described as "Syria's most senior diplomat in the United Kingdom," and two other diplomats from the embassy. The Foreign Office said the action was "a direct response to the horrific killing of over 100 people including 49 children and 34 women in el-Houleh." Hague said the chargé had been given seven days to leave the country.17 Reporting to the Commons on June 11, 2012, Hague said: "On 29 May, we expelled three Syrian diplomats from London, including the chargé d'affaires, in co-ordination with the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and other countries that took similar steps."18

Records at the National Archives

The National Archives catalogue lists a Foreign Office research background brief of November 1986 titled "The Hindawi Case: Syrian connexions."19 Home Office files include "The Hindawi affair: discovery of an explosive device at Heathrow Airport" (1986) and "Relations with Syria following the conviction of Nezar Hindawi" (1986 to 1989).2021 Three files of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Security Co-ordination Department for 1986 carry the title "Hindawi Affair: attempted bombing of El Al Flight 016 at Heathrow Airport, April 1986; Syrian involvement."22 Director of Public Prosecutions case papers on Hindawi's prosecution are catalogued under DPP 2/9881 and related references.23

Footnotes

  1. HC Deb 24 October 1986 vol 102 cc1504-14, "Anglo-Syrian Relations," statement by Sir Geoffrey Howe, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, including the exchange that followed. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/oct/24/anglo-syrian-relations ↩︎

  2. Statement by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Speakes on United Kingdom-Syria Diplomatic Relations, October 24, 1986, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/102486e ↩︎

  3. John Walcott, "U.S. and Britain Are Pressing Allies To Act Against Syria to Stop Terrorism," Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1986, CIA reading room copy (CIA-RDP90-00965R000707060047-4). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000707060047-4 ↩︎

  4. Statement by Principal Deputy Press Secretary Speakes on United States Diplomatic and Economic Actions Against Syria, November 14, 1986, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/research/speeches/111486c ↩︎

  5. HC Deb 28 October 1986 vol 103 cc167-74, "Foreign Affairs Council," statement by Sir Geoffrey Howe and the exchange that followed. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1986/oct/28/foreign-affairs-council ↩︎

  6. [2011] EWHC 830 (QB), Hindawi, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Justice, Lord Justice Thomas and Mrs Justice Nicola Davies, April 1, 2011, paras 1, 5 and 6. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2011/830 ↩︎

  7. Patrick Seale with Maureen McConville, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (University of California Press, 1989), "The Hindawi affair," pp. 475 to 476. ↩︎

  8. Central Intelligence Agency, note to the Deputy Director for Intelligence, November 5, 1986, with attached assessment of Syrian, Libyan and Iranian state support for terrorism (CIA-RDP89G00720R000600740004-0). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp89g00720r000600740004-0 ↩︎

  9. David B. Ottaway, "Syrian Connection To Terrorism Probed," Washington Post, June 1, 1986, CIA reading room copy (CIA-RDP90-00965R000604900038-5). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000604900038-5 ↩︎

  10. Ari Ben-Menashe, Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network (Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay, 2015), pp. 121 to 124 (departure-lounge sentence at p. 123; police statement at p. 124). ↩︎

  11. Patrick Seale with Maureen McConville, Asad of Syria (1989), "The Hindawi affair," pp. 477 to 480. ↩︎

  12. Patrick Seale with Maureen McConville, Asad of Syria (1989), p. 181 (on General Muhammad al-Khuly). ↩︎

  13. Patrick Seale with Maureen McConville, Asad of Syria (1989), "The Hindawi affair," pp. 480 to 481. ↩︎

  14. Arnaud de Berchgrave, "Chirac told Syria was framed," The Washington Times, November 7, 1986, CIA reading room copy (CIA-RDP90-00965R000201460003-9). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000201460003-9 ↩︎

  15. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, Terrorism Review, June 1986 (DI TR 86-007, CIA-RDP87T00685R000200360003-6). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp87t00685r000200360003-6 ↩︎

  16. HC Deb 28 November 1990, "Middle East," statement by Douglas Hurd, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, and the exchange that followed. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1990/nov/28/middle-east-2 ↩︎

  17. Foreign Office news story, "Foreign Secretary announces expulsion of Syrian diplomats," May 29, 2012. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/foreign-secretary-announces-expulsion-of-syrian-diplomats ↩︎

  18. HC Deb 11 June 2012 vol 546, "Syria," statement by William Hague. https://hansard-api.parliament.uk/debates/debate/1206117000002.json ↩︎

  19. The National Archives, catalogue reference FO 973/488, "The Hindawi Case: Syrian connexions," November 1986. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C260267 ↩︎

  20. The National Archives, catalogue reference HO 394/1047, "The Hindawi affair: discovery of an explosive device at Heathrow Airport," 1986. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C21239835 ↩︎

  21. The National Archives, catalogue reference HO 394/1037, "Relations with Syria following the conviction of Nezar Hindawi," 1986 to 1989. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C21239825 ↩︎

  22. The National Archives, catalogue references FCO 178/474, FCO 178/477 and FCO 178/481, "Hindawi Affair: attempted bombing of El Al Flight 016 at Heathrow Airport, April 1986; Syrian involvement," 1986. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17754877 ; https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17754880 ; https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17754884 ↩︎

  23. The National Archives, catalogue reference DPP 2/9881, "Nezar Nawaf Mansour HINDAWI: attempting to place on an aircraft a device likely to destroy or damage the aircraft on 17 April 1986 in London," 1986 to 1988. https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16603148 ↩︎