MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

BBC2 To Gear claims “they threw us out of Argentina for the political capital”

Jeremy Clarkson said his crew did nothing wrong and affirmed “someone could have been killed” as a consequence of the incidents

BBC2’s Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said his crew did nothing wrong and affirmed “someone could have been killed”, following incidents in which a group of people in Tierra del Fuego threw stones at their cars, thinking the license plates they used for filming were directly alluding to the Falklands/Malvinas War.

 The crew of the show Top Gear had to flee Argentina into Chile after the conflict.

“They threw us out for the political capital. Thousands chased crew to border. Someone could have been killed,” said Clarkson on Sunday in his Twitter account, and stated the number plate “was a coincidence”.

“When it was pointed out to us, we changed it,” he added.

The “H982 FKL” plate was the most questionable one from the whole Top Gear team, for it was believed to reference both the year of the armed conflict between Argentina and England and an apocopate form for “Falklands.”

Other controversial plates featured the numbers 269 and 646, which seemed similar with the number of casualties suffered during the 1982 Falklands conflict.

“This was not a jolly jape that went awry. For once, we did nothing wrong. We had planned a good ending for the show. But thanks to the government's foolishness, it's now even better,” Clarkson said.

Officials said a crowd of about 50 people began hurling stones at members of the BBC production team Thursday night as they drove in a caravan under police escort to the Chilean border in the southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego.

One of the most watched television programs worldwide, Top Gear has also featured its fair share of controversy since the show’s debut in 1977. Firebrand host Jeremy Clarkson was repeatedly blasted by several different people and organizations for his remarks, which were often labeled as xenophobic and racist.