5 MAY 1984, Page 18

Sir: Clearly, no power when subscribing to the Vienna Convention

could have imagined that its terms could ever be exploited to get a killer off the hook. All the same, in the interests of civilisation, it must go on as signed until a change can be agreed. But the Arabs already have a well- tried system for dealing with shedders of blood, and their language contains words corresponding to 'compensation' and `retribution'. It is reasonable to think that a really large sum of money extracted under the name of the first could cause the average corner-boy in the bazaars of Tripoli to wonder whether it might not have been paid under the second. David Carlton (`An ultimatum for Gaddafi', 28 April) has already pointed in this direction.

Maxwell Fleming

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