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Princess Diana
The sinister world of Henri Paul – and how it led to Diana's death
By Gordon Thomas
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Britain's intelligence chiefs – Sir John Scarlett of MI6 and Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller of MI5 – are prepared to challenge the Stevens Report if it has failed to fully investigate the background of Henri Paul the night he drove Diana and her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, to their deaths.
Scarlett and Dame Eliza are considering asking to appear in a closed session of the Oversight Parliamentary Intelligence Committee if they find the Stevens Report will attack the intelligence service's role in the two deaths.
Both intelligence chiefs believe that central to the death crash was Paul's mental state, which left him unable to control the powerful Mercedes.
as well as giving lengthy interviews to Lord Stevens, the intelligence chiefs provided him with detailed files. They include reports from MI6 officers in Paris on the night of the crash.
according to one agent's report, Paul was "tormented and in fear of his life that he had fallen foul of Europe's most ruthless criminal, Semyon Mogilevich".
For two years Henri Paul had been acting as a broker between Mogilevich's Rising Sun gang and arab arms dealers.
But shortly before Diana and Dodi arrived at the Ritz, where Henri Paul was head of security, Mogilevich learned that Paul had held meetings with Mossad.
ari Ben-Menashe, a former adviser on intelligence to the Israeli government who knew of the attempt to recruit Henri Paul to spy on the arms dealers that stayed at the Ritz, said: "Mossad knew the chances of getting Henri Paul on side were small. For a start he was anti-Semitic. and he was already working as an informer for French intelligence. Mossad was still trying to persuade him on the night of the crash".
an MI6 officer, who was in the Ritz on the night of the crash, later noted Henri Paul had "pushed hard to drive the princess when Dodi wanted to take her back to his apartment. It is credible to conclude that Paul did so in the belief he would be safe from the criminals with whom he had been dealing with Diana on board".
The officer insisted the persistent reports over the years that MI6 was spying on Diana because of her relationship with Dodi, a Muslim, "are pure nonsense. The only interest MI6 had was to protect her. But no one could have anticipated her mood changes that resulted in Henri Paul being suddenly ordered to drive her and Dodi to his apartment".
The officer said it would not be "completely fanciful" for the Queen to have approved of the presence of MI6 officers to watch over Diana.
MI6 had discovered Henri Paul acted as the middleman between the Rising Sun, the criminal family headed by Semyon Mogilevich, and arab arms dealers, including a Saudi prince.
In May 1997, two Mossad agents arrived in Paris to try and recruit Henri Paul. They discovered that Henri Paul had taken great care to keep his secret contacts with the underworld from his employers. He had a special cell phone on which only the arms dealers and Rising Sun criminals could contact him.
He held his meetings with them, often late at night, in back street cafes in districts of Paris populated by arabs. He had arranged for his payments as a "fixer" to be made into a number of bank accounts across France and in Switzerland.
Using this information, the Mossad agents tried to first cajole Henri Paul and then threaten him with exposure to his employers.
It was those tactics which may have contributed to Henri Paul taking a variety of drugs and drinking more heavily.
The existence of Mossad's files was confirmed by ari Ben-Menashe. But the Stevens investigation appears to have made no attempt to obtain them.
"It is my belief they contain important evidence about Henri Paul's behaviour and the role of the intelligence services that surrounded Diana", said Ben-Menashe. "Of course they understood how to use the appropriate pressure", he added. "That would inevitably have had an effect on Henri Paul".
a French intelligence officer said last week: "In an effort to seek help to get Mossad out of his hair, he may well have told someone of the pressure he was under. He could, of course, tell no one in the hotel. So he may well have turned to one of his arab contacts. From then it was inevitable Mogilevich would come to know. The thought that Henri Paul was dealing with hated Israelis would be sufficient to seal his fate".
The officer said the Rising Sun has a record of staging car accidents in various cities in eastern Europe.
But until the Stevens Report is published, no one can be certain if it has taken into account the secret and sinister connections that led to Diana's death.
Gordon Thomas 2006
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