Two articles posted on the Aftermathnews site :
DIANA: SPIES WERE IN PARIS
By Jo Willey
British spies from M15 or M16 were operating out of Paris on the night Diana was killed in a car crash, her inquest heard yesterday.
Keith Moss, Britain’s former Consul-General in Paris, said he was aware of their presence but didn’t know why they were there.
Questioned by Michael Mansfield QC, representing Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed whose son Dodi died in the Paris crash, Mr Moss said he may even have unwittingly met them.
The jury has been told Mr Al Fayed is convinced the couple were murdered in an MI6 plot and that the crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel was orchestrated.
Mr Moss said he knew nothing of the activities of the security services, adding that there were issues over whether agents were “declared” to the local authorities.
In reply to questioning by Mr Mansfield, he said: “You asked me if I knew if there were officers from MI5 and MI6 posted to Paris. I know that there were officers from the security services there, but whether they were from MI5 or MI6, I do not know the differentiation.”
Earlier, the inquest was told that Princess Diana’s life might have been saved if French police had been tipped off that she was in Paris.
The claim came in a conversation Mr Moss had with a man who claimed he was from the French diplomatic protection unit.
The man approached Mr Moss inside the Pitie-Salpatriere Hosp-ital in the hours after Diana’s death and said French officers could have carried out secret surveillance during her visit to Paris. Mr Moss, number two to ambassador Sir Michael Jay on the day Diana died – August 31, 1997 – said the man approached him outside the room where her body was being kept while VIPs including President Jacques Chirac paid their last respects.
He told the inquest: “He asked me whether we knew that the Princess had been in France and if we did know, why hadn’t his service been informed.
“He then went on to say that, if a contact had been made with his organisation, then they would have conducted discreet surveillance or security coverage during her visit.”
Mr Mansfield asked: “If they had known and made surveillance, did he say words to the effect that this incident would possibly not have happened?”
Mr Moss replied: “That was the inference of what he was saying to me, yes. I replied that as far as I was concerned, we were totally unaware of her visit to France or the fact that she was in Paris.”
Mr Mansfield asked why Mr Moss had not reported the conversation.
He said: “You recognise now, do you not, that it might have been quite significant to discover who this man was and how he thought he would have been able, had they been tipped off, how they might have prevented her death. That’s a pretty important question.”
But Mr Moss insisted: “It didn’t seem to be at the time.”
He passed on the man’s remarks to the ambassador a few moments later but said he did not record it in a statement at the time.
Mr Moss admitted he sanctioned Diana’s embalming after consultation with the UK but could not remember with whom.
Diana medics ‘wasted time’, could have saved her
November 23, 2007 · No Comments
The Australian | Nov 21, 2007
LONDON: Princess Diana might have survived her fatal Paris car crash in 1997 if French medical staff had not wasted precious time, a leading British surgeon indicated at her inquest yesterday.
Thomas Treasure, a former president of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery, said there might have been a “window of opportunity” to get her to hospital half an hour earlier and save her.
Medics did “very substantial good” when they were first on the scene, but once the princess was put in an ambulance for the drive to hospital, time began “slipping away”, he told the High Court in London.
Professor Treasure said Diana’s injuries were extremely serious but she might have survived if the journey to the hospital had been short, a specialist team had been on standby and a surgeon had opened up her chest from the front instead of the side.
“They had done a lot of good in that first half hour but from here, the next big amount of good that could be done required a surgeon,” he said.
Inquest lawyer Nicholas Hilliard asked Professor Treasure: “Is it your view that part of that time, the essential period, was squandered?”
He replied: “It’s a hard word, isn’t it? But I think opportunities were lost … when I pick through this with the benefit of hindsight (and ask) ‘Was this recoverable?’, the answer is, ‘Yes, it just about was’.”
The inquest has heard that Diana was freed from the wreckage of her Mercedes at 1am, within 35 minutes of the crash. She had suffered an apparent cardiac arrest and received heart massage at the scene. She was then put in an ambulance but it was not until 1.40am that medics thought her condition sufficiently stable to take her to hospital.
Even then, the ambulance driver was told to go slowly so as not to destabilise her. The ambulance had to stop for about five minutes just metres from the hospital when her blood pressure plunged to dangerously low levels. Once she got to the hospital, doctors battled to save her but gave up about 4am.
Professor Andre Lienhart, who investigated Diana’s treatment for a French probe, told the inquest earlier that she was “agitated”, had “refused treatment” and had pulled a drip out of her arm while being treated in the Alma tunnel.
http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/
)
