Britain's MI6 denies killing Diana
LONDON (AP) - February 20, 2008 Sir Richard Dearlove, who was MI6's director of special
operations at the time of Diana's Paris death, told a coroner's
inquest that MI6 didn't assassinate anyone between 1994 and 1999,
when he was director of special operations.
Assassination, he said, was contrary to government policy, and
he was unaware of any such activity by the agency during his
career.
He also denied that MI6 mounted any operations directed at her
or Fayed, including surveillance or bugging, and took no particular
interest in her campaign against land mines.
Dearlove also testified that an operation by rogue agents would
have been "impossible."
Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has accused MI6, the Secret
Intelligence Service, of engineering the death of his son and the
princess at the behest of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth
II.
As director of special operations, Dearlove said it was his
responsibility to sign off on any operation that would otherwise be
illegal, such as breaking into an office or receiving a stolen
document.
The operation would then have to be approved by the foreign
secretary, a senior member of the government.
Ian Burnett, a lawyer for the coroner's inquest, asked Dearlove
whether he could confirm that "no authorization was sought in
respect of any activities concerning Princess Diana."
"I can absolutely confirm that," Dearlove said.
Burnett asked later whether that denial included "such things
as eavesdropping, surveillance, bugging, anything that anyone can
think of?"
"Everything," Dearlove said.
Burnett asked: "And it would plainly have been outside the
functions of (the agency) to do so?"
"Had it been done, it would have been outside the function of
the service," Dearlove said.
Burnett asked if it was possible for rogue elements to mount an
operation outside the chain of command.
"I would have regarded that as an impossibility," Dearlove
said.
Dearlove, who headed the agency from 1999-2004, denied a claim
by former agent Richard Tomlinson about a proposed plan in the
early 1990s to assassinate the late Slobodan Milosevic, then
president of Serbia.
Dearlove said the idea involved another target - but that it was
immediately "killed stone dead" at a low level.
Al Fayed's claim that Philip directed MI6 was "utterly
ridiculous," Dearlove said. There was no formal relationship
between the agency and the prince, although Philip had visited the
agency's offices in the queen's company, he said.
Michael Mansfield, Al Fayed's attorney, said the incident
described by Tomlinson raised questions about how tight MI6's
controls were.
Mansfield asked the jury "to consider ... the possibility that
elements within the security services in 1997 were responsible not
just for drawing up a plan, but the possibility that one or more of
them may have been responsible for what happened."
"So Prince Philip bypassed the top people and went to someone
else?" asked the coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker.
In testimony Monday, Al Fayed's allegations went far beyond a
few rogue agents. He alleged that those involved in the plot and
its cover-up included Prince Charles; then-Prime Minister Tony
Blair; Diana's sister, Sarah McQuorquodale; Diana's brother-in-law
Robert Fellowes; her butler Paul Burrell; two former chiefs of
London police; driver Henri Paul; Diana's attorney, the late Lord
Mishcon; two French toxicologists, members of the French medical
service, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Dearlove rebuffed Mansfield's suggestion that someone might have
regarded an alliance between Diana and Fayed a threat to national
security.
Mansfield pressed Dearlove about the training given to agents
about assassinations.
Dearlove acknowledged that the "no assassination" policy was
not put down in writing in training manuals during his time, but
would have been communicated orally.
Dearlove's appearance before the inquest was an extraordinary
exception to agency policy of neither publicly confirming nor
denying any allegations about its activities.
He was the first MI6 director whose name was publicly confirmed.
Previous directors were known only as "C."