Add one more to the Clinton body count.
What's one more for a friend's sake?
Friday, 31 August 2001 12:10 (ET)
Culture Vulture: The Diana conspiracy
By CLAUDE SALHANI
WASHINGTON, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- If you like conspiracy theories, then read
on. This one belongs up there with the second gunman, the curving bullet and
the grassy knoll.
Four years to the day after the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and
her Egyptian millionaire boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed in Paris, questions remain
-- at least in the mind of Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayad -- regarding the
events that unfolded the night of Aug. 31, 1997.
Move over John LeCarré and Frederick Forsythe. The Egyptian businessman
and owner of the noted London department store Harrods believes British and
American intelligence agencies were weaving a wide web of conspiracy to have
Lady Di killed because she could have been pregnant.
Al Fayed's reasoning: Britain's royal house could never allow the future
king of England to have a stepfather who was a Muslim and an Arab. Thus,
begins the strange string of events that one finds only in spy thrillers,
which the French would call "serie noire."
And indeed all the ingredients of a conspiracy -- if one had a
conspiratorial mind -- are present. Judge for yourself.
First there is the beautiful, young princess and her handsome lover who
wanted to retire to Malibu, in California, and live happily ever after. But
this never came to pass because Dodi and the Princess of Wales were
assassinated by British intelligence agents, announced Mohamed Al Fayed in a
videotaped message Thursday.
Next comes the mysterious and untimely death of a paparazzo, one of the
multitude who made a living following, and chronicling, Diana and other
celebrities.
Then follows the unexplained embalming of the princess' body, (Dodi's body
was not embalmed) and the intervention of the Royal Palace, asking the
doctors to omit any mention of Diana's pregnancy in their report.
Last, but certainly not, least is the involvement of British and American
intelligence agencies -- MI5 and MI6, the CIA, the FBI and the National
Security Agency.
The list goes on.
At a news conference in Washington, Mark Zaid, one of Al Fayad's
attorneys, and John Macnamara, who before joining the board of directors of
Harrods was director of security for the famed British department store,
announced that "new evidence on the deaths" was now available.
Understandably still grieving for the death of his son, Al Fayed, said he
"would never rest until the truth is known," and announced he was filing
several law suits in order to gain access to information held by the CIA
relating to the deaths of his son, and Lady Di.
Al Fayed and his attorneys believe there are mountains of documents
pertaining to the deaths that are being withheld from him, including
telephone transcripts compiled by the NSA.
"The FBI admitted to possessing at least 2,000 pages of information," said
Zaid. "The NSA has 1,100 pages of documents on Diana and the CIA refused to
identify what documents they have." In all, Zaid and Macnamara believe that
about 10 U.S. federal agencies are involved in the cover up.
A number of clues -- according to Al Fayed and his investigators - point
an accusing finger to the British intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, known
collectively as SIS, for Secret Intelligence Services.
Diana's body was embalmed, they say, when it was shipped out of Paris.
Reasons: to mislead an eventual pregnancy test. Embalming fluids, they
explain, could cause errors in the outcome of a pregnancy test. In other
words, women who are not pregnant and whose bodies are embalmed, test
positive, even though they are not.
There was the allegation that the driver of Diana and Dodi's car, Henry
Paul, was drunk the night of the accident. "Drunk as a skunk," the tabloids
heralded. But the blood used in tests carried out on Paul's body to prove he
was drunk, again according to Al Fayed, was not Paul's blood.
"Henry Paul," says Al Fayed's people, "was an informant for SIS." But a
few minutes later they add that MI6 had great "difficulty recruiting
Frenchmen."
The clues? "Paul carried about $2,000 in cash the night he was killed.
Although he was well paid by Al Fayed, he was not that well paid."
Clue number two: Paul's liver was undamaged. Had he been an alcoholic, his
liver, as we all know, would have suffered greater abuse. Furthermore,
Trevor Rhys-Jones, Diana's bodyguard, and the only person in the car to
survive the Paris crash, described Paul as perfectly sober that night.
Clue number three: There was no independent examination of Henry Paul's
body after it was returned to his family, a condition imposed by French
authorities. Paul's body was later cremated.
Clue number four: There were 15 other accidental deaths in Paris that
night. Presumably, this gave the plotters a number of bodies from which to
extract blood and pass it off as Paul's.
Next, Al Fayed's attorneys produce a Richard Tomlinson. Well, a videotape
of Tomlinson, who admits being a former MI6 operative, Britain's equivalent
of the CIA. Tomlinson, who was supposed to travel to Washington to attend
the press conference, but "was prevented by the U.S. government from coming
to Washington."
Tomlinson says the "accident" was no accident, but was planned by MI6.
Another clue: James Andanson, the French paparazzo, who according to some
accounts was not present the night of the accident, died in what some called
a "car accident" on a remote stretch of road in rural southern France, as he
headed to his country house. Andanson's charred body was found several days
later by soldiers on a military exercise near the village of Nant.
An article in the June 4, 2000, issue of the (London) Sunday Times claimed
Andanson was a "key witness in the police investigation into the death of
Diana." Al Fayed believes Andanson was murdered and the act covered up.
Al Fayed's investigative team believe Andanson may have been the driver of
the white Fiat Uno, the car that clipped the princess's Mercedes as it drove
at high speed through the Alma tunnel.
Macnamara, a former Scotland Yard investigator adds: "Four masked men
raided Andanson's office in Paris, removing contents from his computer. Just
like Britain's SIS raided some people's houses in London, after Diana's and
Dodi's death."
Tomlinson, the former British agent explained in a series of short taped
blurbs that the way Lady Di and Dodi were killed was in fact very similar to
a British intelligence plan hatched to terminate former Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic.
"Intelligence services," said Tomlinson, "cause car and airplane
accidents. They use flash guns and stun guns, or other cars and motorcycles
to disorient drivers."
It could be that Diana's and Dodi's deaths were accidental, then again
maybe not. Maybe Al Fayed's efforts will eventually shed more light on this
tragic event that took away three lives in that fateful Parisian tunnel four
years ago. Or maybe, just like the enigma of the grassy knoll, this one too
will remain forever enshrouded in mystery.
If Al Fayed has his way, there will certainly be much more said on this
story. Stay tuned. |
