Mustapha Karkouti

Mustapha Karkouti (1943 - July 16, 2020) was a Syrian freelance journalist and media consultant, residing in London since the early 1970s. He started as an agency journalist in Syria in the 1960s and went on to be a founding member of the Lebanese daily newspaper As-Safir. As its foreign correspondent he was sent to London in the early 1970s where remained for the rest of his career. In the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege in London he was taken hostage, and the hostage-takers who were primarily Arab used him to communicate with the police and other hostages. He was released before the British Special Air Service (SAS) stormed the embassy.