Gideon's Spies

Mossad had no interest in the relationship between Diana and Dodi. Their sole concern was to recruit Henri Paul as their informer in the Ritz. Regarding the mysterious news photographer: in the past Mossad has allowed its agents to pose as journalists. It may well have been Maurice keeping watch outside the hotel. The two unidentified men in the hotel bar may have had some connection to Mossad. It would no doubt comfort Mohamed al-Fayed if that were true.

By 1999, Mohamed al-Fayed’s belief in a “plot” had hardened to what he saw as “a full-blown criminal conspiracy.” He insisted it had been manufactured by MI5 and MI6, and French intelligence with Mossad “manipulating in the background.” To those who would listen, and they were steadily declining in number, he would name a London newspaper editor as well as a close friend of Diana as both having “direct links” to Britain’s intelligence services.

The reasons why these services had become involved in the “conspiracy” was clear-cut in Mohammed’s mind. “A decision had been made by the Establishment, and at the very top, that Diana must not be allowed to marry a Muslim. Then the future king of England, Prince William, would have an Arab as his stepfather and another as his grandfather. There was also a real fear that I would provide the money to allow Diana to become a rival to the Queen of England. The Establishment would do anything to end my son’s relationship with the one woman he had ever truly loved.”

Facts were never produced to support an allegation which, if proven, would surely accelerate the end of the Royal Family in Britain and perhaps pave the way to a crisis of confidence that could even sweep away a government.

Nevertheless, al-Fayed authorized his spokesman, Laurie Meyer, a former anchorman with one of Rupert Murdoch’s television networks, to state to the media: “Mohammed firmly believes Di and Dodi were murdered by agents loyal to the British Crown and that other agencies were deeply involved in the crime. He further believes there is deep-seated racism within the Establishment.”

To confirm that murder most foul had taken place, al-Fayed had employed the skills of a former senior Scotland Yard detective, John MacNamara. By early 1999 the soft-spoken investigator was scouring the world for evidence. Along the way, in Geneva, Switzerland, he met a former MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson, who claimed he had seen documents at MI6 headquarters on the bank of the River Thames. Tomlinson insisted they described “a plan to murder the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic—a plan that has unsettling parallels to the way Di and Dodi died. The MI6 document stated that the ‘accident’ should happen in a tunnel where the chance of fatal injury is high. The weapon of choice the document recommended was a high-powered laser beam that could be used to temporarily blind the driver of the target vehicle.”

Despite all his efforts, MacNamara has been unable to find any independent evidence to support Tomlinson’s claims—and efforts to obtain the MI6 document totally failed.

Then came news, reluctantly confirmed, that the United States National Security Agency, NSA, had some 1,050 pages of documents on the couple. Al-Fayed launched an immediate court battle in Washington to obtain the documents.

“The more he is blocked, the greater is his determination,” said the loyal Meyer. But, like others, he is not holding his breath. “It could take years to work its way through the system.”

Part of the reason, I had discovered, was that Diana and Dodi had been under surveillance by ECHELON, one of NSA’s most sensitive and ultra-secret surveillance systems. This global electronic network is of truly astounding proportions. It links satellites to a series of high-speed parallel computers. The system enables NSA and those it allows to share information—Britain is one—to intercept and decode virtually every electronic communication in the world—in real time. Searching for key words it had been fed, ECHELON can identify and segregate messages of interest to its users.

Following her divorce from Prince Charles, Diana had launched her campaign to abolish land mines. She was blunt, outspoken, and quickly gathered support that was not welcomed by the Clinton administration or in London and other European capitals. She was seen as a meddler, someone who did not understand what she was talking about.

“The reality was that the land mine manufacturing industry provided thousands of jobs. No one wanted to see the mines used—but no one wanted people put out of work because Diana had a bee in her bonnet,” one Washington source told me; perhaps understandably he insisted on not being named in return for this insight.

The arrival of Dodi in Diana’s life automatically meant he became part of ECHELON’S collection activities. Unknown to them, their every conversation, however intimate, was silently gathered up by ECHELON’S satellites.