Posted on 02/15/2008 12:02:16 AM PST by Bokababe
MI6 plotted to murder Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in a staged car accident in a tunnel five years before Diana, Princess of Wales died in a similar crash, a renegade former spy has told the inquest into her death.
Richard Tomlinson, who worked for MI6 in the early 1990s, told the High Court he had seen a two page document, drawn up in 1992, detailing three plans to kill Mr Milosevic.
Diana inquest: MI6 plotted tunnel murder One plan was to use a strobe light to blind Mr Milosevic’s chauffeur
The first involved using a Serb opposition paramilitary group, which was regarded as being the most “deniable” method.
The second involved using the “increment” – a small group from the SAS or SBS – to infiltrate Serbia and kill Mr Milosevic using a bomb or sniper ambush.
A third plan was to use a strobe light to blind Mr Milosevic’s chauffeur as his cavalcade passed through a motorway tunnel during peace talks in Geneva.
Mr Tomlinson said the plan was shown to him by a senior MI6 officer referred to as “A” who argued that a crash in a tunnel would mean fewer witnesses and a greater chance it would be fatal.
The former MI6 officer also said he had been shown a strobe light by members of the SBS during his training in Poole, Dorset.
He was told that the equipment, which was portable, was intended for blinding enemy helicopter pilots as they tried to land at night.
Mr Tomlinson gave evidence on a video link from Marseilles.
He was called as a witness to the inquest after he told a French magistrate that the Paris car crash which killed the Princess, Dodi Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul on Aug 31, 1997, bore an “eerie similarity” to an MI6 plot.
He told the inquest that “A” was a “very ambitious and diligent” MI6 section sub-head, aged in his early 30s.
He is referred to as “Fish” in Lord Stevens’ police inquiry into the crash. Mr Tomlinson said “A” showed him the plan in his office on the 11th floor of Century House.
It gave a justification for murdering Mr Milosevic because of his plans for a greater Serbia, a feared genocide of Albanians in Kosovo and his support for Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader.
The circulation list for the document included the private secretary to the head of MI6. “There was no doubt in my mind that A was entirely serious about his plan,” Mr Tomlinson said.
“He was an ambitious and serious officer who would not risk his career by making such a proposal in jest.”
Counsel to the inquest Nicholas Hilliard said “A” had revealed there was a document, written in March 1993, about someone else in the Balkans, not Mr Milosevic, and that it was a “contingency plan”.
The other figure was not named but among the likeliest targets would have been the warlord known as Arkan.
Mr Tomlinson also suggested that Henri Paul was passing information to MI6. When he was reading files on an operation to smuggle weapons out of the Soviet Union he came a across details of an unnamed French security officer at the Ritz Hotel who he later concluded that it was Mr Paul.
“There is no doubt Henri Paul would have been of interest to the intelligence services,” he said.
Mr Tomlinson said MI6 paid many people for information or access on an ad hoc basis including a member of the paparazzi and a barrister.
Mr Tomlinson was recruited by MI6 in 1991 after graduating from Cambridge University with a First Class degree in aeronautical engineering.. He was sacked in 1995 and jailed under the Official Secrets Act in 1997 after passing a proposal for a book to a publisher.
His book The Big Breach was eventually published in Moscow in 2001 and now lives in France.
“What color is the boathouse at Herford?”
A PROPOSED assassination plot...says a former agent who was with them for four years and was FIRED and jailed for breaking security rules?
How the f*** should I know?
The intel agencies don’t mess around... they probably have various assassination plans for just about anyone of note. The Pentagon works the same way, they have contingency plans to invade Luxembourg if need be. For my money, the Mossad is still the best. They murdered a bunch of Iranian scientists a year or so ago before anyone knew what was up. And of course, Putin... I wonder if his hand picked successor has ties to the KGB as well.
That is probably my favorite movie. Anything with John Wayne, Steven Segal, early Clint Eastwoods and Robert Mitchum, as far as action/war/Westerns would be next. Wonder if they’ll do another?
Ah, the Milosevic days. It was weird back during the ‘99 Kosovo war, driving past tie-dye hippies and crisp-shirt paleo-conservatives standing together on the street corner, shouting “Stop this unjust war!”
Although I personally opposed that war, I never would have joined forces with those anti-American hippie swine.
MI6’s alternate plan was getting the driver drunk and have Milosevic chased by paparazzi.
Aren’t you ‘The Ace of Spies?’
Sidney Reilly was a bit well, knavish for my tastes.
More likely Mr. Tomlinson is a self-promoting wingnut— likr the VIPs group of former bureaucrats on our side of the pond- who is trying to increase his book sales with bizaare accusations.
Sure enough I go a lot of hits when plugged his name into a search engine with the wingnut Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame associate Ray McGovern from VIPS.
If there is anything to say about the death of Princess Diana, it has to be that this is clearly one of the most open-and-shut criminal cases in our history... the driver was drunk and operated the vehicle accordingly. It is tragic, but there isn't anything more to this story.
bttt
As for the little green men, aren’t they fairies that appear after drinking absinthe? It's a lot easier to blame everyone but the people who didn't behave responsibly by wearing seatbelts.
Actually what makes it more interesting is that MI6 went after Tomlinson for "breaking the Official Secrets Act" They don't do that to you for just "making stuff up".
Reilly, Ace of Spies", with Sam Neill, was one of my all-time favorite PBS's series. At the time, they said that "Sydney Reilly" was Ian Fleming's model for the character of James Bond, but ironically that "model" seemed to be more based on a real-life Serb, named Dusko Popov and code-named "Tricycle"
Thanks! I seem to recall hearing Tomlinson’s name in connection with VIPS before.
Sometimes they do, if someone is mixing real information with fabrications, for instance. . .It sounds like that was for his prior book rather than his current allegation, though.
Regarding your comment on your first post, IIRC in the earliest phase of the Croatian conflict Germany played a leading role, before the US got involved; not sure when Britain got involved but maybe it had something to do with Germany's early involvement.
I think Fleming also modelled Bond on himself somewhat, exaggerated to Reilly-like proportions of course, LOL.
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