Hearing transcripts

28 February 2008 - Afternoon session

24 (2.00 pm)
25 (Jury present)

108

1 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Burnett, Witnesses 1 and 5 are
2 both scheduled to give evidence tomorrow and I am very
3 reluctant to bring anybody here, let alone a member of
4 the SIS, unless they are needed. It occurs to me that
5 it may well be that their evidence is uncontroversial
6 and nobody is going to be asking them any questions.
7 Can you help me if that is right?
8 MR BURNETT: Sir, the position is that we have canvassed
9 everyone's views about Witnesses 1 and 5 and everybody
10 has indicated that they have no desire to ask any
11 questions of Witnesses 1 and 5. In those circumstances,
12 the best course might be to read their statements as
13 uncontroversial.
14 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Any observations?
15 Very well, they can be read tomorrow and stood down
16 in the meantime.
17 So the next witness is Witness H.
18 Witness H (sworn)
19 Questions from MR BURNETT
20 MR BURNETT: Now, Witness H, my name is Ian Burnett.
21 I shall ask you questions first on behalf of
22 the Coroner, and thereafter you will be asked questions
23 by counsel representing other interested persons.
24 We are going to call you Witness H, if that is okay,
25 but your real name has been made available to

109

1 the Coroner. That is right, isn't it?
2 A. (Nods)
3 Q. Now, Witness H, I hope I can take my questions
4 relatively quickly because we have already heard, as you
5 may know, from Witness A about the topic on which you
6 can possibly provide assistance and we have also heard
7 from Witness X a great deal of detailed information
8 about the way in which SIS kept records back in
9 the early to mid-1990s.
10 A. Right.
11 Q. Now, it is right, isn't it, that in the early 1990s and
12 particularly in 1992 and 1993, you were A's line
13 manager?
14 A. That is correct, yes.
15 Q. And in that connection, we know, and I do not think this
16 is in dispute, that A was part of what was known as part
17 of the "Balkans Target Team"; that is probably not
18 the correct name but it is the name that we have had?
19 A. That is fine.
20 Q. Was your line-managing role only involved in A's group
21 or did it encompass a broader range of SIS officers?
22 A. It encompassed a broader range.
23 Q. In the hierarchy we have heard, and again, I think it
24 uncontroversial, that the controllerate in which A
25 worked and thus you worked was run at the material time

110

1 by a witness whom we have been identifying as E?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. But you know who he is, obviously.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Is it right, H, that you made a short statement to
6 Metropolitan Police officers on 10th January 2005?
7 A. Yes, that is correct.
8 Q. And you have a copy of that statement in front of you?
9 A. I have, yes.
10 Q. Now, we heard from Witness A a little of the background
11 to the work which the Balkan Team was doing at that
12 time, in particular, the disintegration and the problems
13 that had erupted in the Former Republic Yugoslavia. Is
14 it right that as part of your responsibilities you also
15 were concerned with those issues amongst others?
16 A. Very much so.
17 Q. What principally was the function that A and his team
18 were performing at the time?
19 A. Their main function was to search for new sources of
20 intelligence.
21 Q. And was that in the context of the United Kingdom having
22 sent troops to the Balkans in August 1992 and thus
23 the need for intelligence to safeguard them was a keen
24 priority?
25 A. The arrival of British troops in Bosnia certainly

111

1 elevated the importance for us and obviously for
2 the British Government.
3 Q. And was part of the task that A and his team and you and
4 others were concerned to undertake to understand
5 the thinking of the leadership in the Former Republic of
6 Yugoslavia and in particular in connection with Serbia
7 and Milosevic and various others of those who either did
8 hold political power or might hold political power?
9 A. Clearly Mr Milosevic's position was absolutely central
10 to whatever was going to happen in Yugoslavia, so it was
11 important for us, yes.
12 Q. Do you have now a recollection of Witness A coming up
13 with a proposal that mooted a contingency plan to
14 assassinate somebody in the Balkans?
15 A. I have a recollection. It is quite hazy but it is clear
16 in the sense that I recall the proposition in general.
17 Q. Now, I appreciate it is 15 years ago and so precise
18 recollections about who said what to whom, who gave what
19 piece of paper to whom and so forth are unlikely to be
20 very fresh, is that fair?
21 A. That is fair, yes.
22 Q. Can you remember, without naming him, the identity of
23 the person in respect of whom A made his proposal?
24 A. Yes, I can.
25 Q. Was that person Milosevic?

112

1 A. No, it was not.
2 Q. With what degree of confidence are you able to say that?
3 A. Complete confidence.
4 Q. Do you remember the circumstances in which you came to
5 know of A's proposal?
6 A. Yes. And I feel I need to say something here about my
7 own witness statement which, as I look at it now,
8 I think I need probably to qualify.
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. Because if you read my statement, it clearly implies
11 that I saw this proposal on its way up. It was not
12 routed through me, that is for certain. And when
13 Witness A said it was addressed to Witness E, he is
14 absolutely right in that. But I had thought, and said
15 so to the police in good faith, in 2005, that I thought
16 I had seen a copy sent sideways to me.
17 Having seen now Witness A's statement -- or rather
18 the proceedings of the court here two days ago and
19 noticing that he has said quite clearly that he excluded
20 me, I think it is very difficult for me to maintain that
21 I did see it on the way up. And probably what I have
22 done is to conflate things.
23 Q. I do not think it necessary for me to explore with you
24 the reasons why he told us that he had bypassed you.
25 There it is. But you have no reason then, have you, to

113

1 suppose that he is right when he said he sent it direct
2 to E and, as you put it, bypassed you?
3 A. He sent it direct to E I think has to be the case.
4 I stand corrected.
5 Q. If that is the position, are you able now to recollect
6 how you became aware of it, or are you -- if you have no
7 clear recollection -- able with some confidence to
8 reconstruct how you must have become aware of it?
9 A. It probably has to be a combination of the two, I think,
10 and I will try to distinguish between the two as best
11 I can.
12 Q. I would be grateful.
13 A. My clear recollection is of Witness E coming into my
14 office and putting this note down on my desk and saying
15 to me words to the effect of -- and I have to say, this
16 is more recollection than certainty -- this is nonsense.
17 This cannot happen. We just don't do this sort of
18 thing. What on earth is Witness A up to?
19 I, of course, had absolutely no idea what he was
20 talking about at that point. Now I know. And I read
21 the thing then and basically he said to me just make
22 sure that we just get rid of this, out of the archive,
23 we don't want it on the archive. We want all copies
24 destroyed.
25 That was really an end to it. I do not recall it

114

1 really being a long conversation. I recall it being
2 pretty short. Witness E's style is very much to
3 the point. We did not hang around on this, and that was
4 it.
5 Q. Did you read it through?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. And so you were able to see that it was a proposal for
8 a contingency plan for an assassination?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Was it obvious to you, without whatever E might have
11 said, that such a thing was not to be countenanced?
12 A. Yes, absolutely.
13 Q. And why was it obvious to you?
14 A. It is against the ethos of the service. And I had grown
15 up throughout my time in the service knowing, if you
16 like, that this is the sort of thing we don't do. I do
17 not even think I remembered the fact that we had had
18 the House of Lords discussion about it. It was simply
19 not done.
20 So it was straightforward to me. There is one point
21 in addition I might make which is, about three or four
22 years earlier, I remember being in touch with our
23 training department and going over and attending one of
24 the lectures given by our head of training department to
25 new entrants. This was very early on in the course. It

115

1 must have been the first week. And he made it
2 absolutely clear, clear to the new entrants, that
3 assassination was something that we did not countenance.
4 It was done in one sentence and moved on very quickly
5 from there, we didn't hang around on it, it was not
6 a matter for discussion or debate. It was just stated.
7 Q. When did you join SIS?
8 A. In the 1970s.
9 Q. And in that time, since you joined in the 1970s, had you
10 ever seen or heard of any other proposal that involved
11 assassination?
12 A. Neither before nor, I know you haven't yet asked me --
13 nor since.
14 Q. It saves me asking. A's recollection, which he
15 recognises is not necessarily a very clear one, when
16 we heard from him on Tuesday was that you went to him
17 and passed on E's views and told him that an order had
18 gone out that the thing simply be destroyed. Is that
19 likely to be right?
20 A. I think so. I have to say this is the point at which my
21 recollection does become very hazy. I do not actually
22 recall the conversation with Witness A in any detail at
23 all. I do recall a conversation much later on when
24 we discussed his performance for that year.
25 Q. We will come to that.

116

1 A. Sure.
2 Q. The other thing A said, if you have read the transcript
3 of his evidence, you will have noted this, is that he
4 drew the inference from what you were saying that word
5 of his proposal had moved beyond E and reached
6 the policy staff, I think he said on the 10th floor --
7 forgive me if I have the wrong floor. But do you have
8 any recollection of that?
9 A. I have no recollection of it at all. I cannot think it
10 could have got to the 10th floor, as he puts it, by
11 means of his paper note at all.
12 Q. As far as the note itself is concerned, forgive me for
13 asking but it is an issue that we have trawled, white or
14 pink?
15 A. My recollection of it is -- and this is more deduction
16 than certainty -- that it was white, that it was
17 substantive, the reason simply being that ephemeral --
18 and I know the court has heard about pink papers -- were
19 there to be shredded. They contained things of no
20 importance at all. Okay, sometimes they might be copied
21 around to let people know there is going to be a meeting
22 on such-and-such a day if there are four or five people
23 who need to be told in one go. But something like this,
24 I think he would have wanted it to be treated with a bit
25 more seriousness. But I am also not clear -- or shall

117

1 we say I cannot say that it is not the case that it was
2 a white as pink. Rather bizarre --
3 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: You mean a white treated as pink
4 memo?
5 A. Yes. I do not think I ever did one of those.
6 MR BURNETT: I will leave that there, if I may.
7 Do you have any recollection of the details of any
8 plans, proposals or options canvassed by A?
9 A. My recollection is of an absence of detail.
10 Q. You mentioned that you came to discuss this later with
11 A. Was that in connection with his annual staff
12 appraisal?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Now, we have extracts from his annual staff appraisal
15 which was for the year 1993 and signed off, I think, in
16 January 1994?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. And the jury have seen that it refers to this matter.
19 From that, are we right to infer that the proposal
20 was raised during 1993, if it was canvassed in a report
21 for Year 1993?
22 A. That would be my deduction. I am afraid I do not
23 remember the dates.
24 Q. Now, we have seen two extracts from the confidential
25 staff appraisal, which I wonder if we might have up on

118

1 the screen in their typewritten form? Thank you.
2 Again the jury looked at this on Tuesday with A.
3 [INQ0061257] I will not take you through the form
4 itself but just to orientate you, if I may, we are
5 looking at section K2 and what we have typed up here,
6 Witness H, is something that is written in your hand.
7 Is that right?
8 A. That is correct, yes.
9 Q. And so we have this:
10 "Yes, he contested a passage in my original summary
11 questioning his judgment in submitting what I regarded
12 as an unethical and impractical proposal to ..."
13 That is E, isn't it?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. "He maintains that he was encouraged to do so. I have
16 discussed this with [E] whose guidance to [Witness A]
17 was designed simply to establish what he was driving at.
18 The proposal was rejected summarily. Being very
19 generous with the benefit of the doubt, I have removed
20 the passage in my original summary."
21 And that you signed off, I think, on
22 13th January 1994. One can check the document but take
23 that from me?
24 A. Right.
25 Q. Now presumably, when you wrote this in the first weeks

119

1 of 1994, the circumstances of the proposal and the way
2 it was treated were reasonably fresh in your memory?
3 A. I suppose they must have been, yes, depending upon what
4 month, seven or eight months, whatever. Maybe a maximum
5 of ten.
6 Q. So the reference to the proposal being "rejected
7 summarily", you still have a recollection of that, but
8 this is a recollection which was recorded very close to
9 the events?
10 A. Absolutely, yes.
11 Q. Now, the reference to "contesting a passage in" your
12 original summary. What is the procedure that was gone
13 through?
14 A. Discussion between him and me about his confidential
15 report, obviously, and the terms in which it was
16 written. I would have written a passage referring to
17 the proposal that he put up, but I would probably have
18 put it neutrally without specifics because for me this
19 was a record for our personnel people. It is not, as it
20 were, an operational document. So, we are dealing with
21 principles and the way in which we as officers perform
22 our duties.
23 Q. So this was a point that you had recorded and again,
24 short circuiting it, he was unhappy that it was recorded
25 for the reasons that you have explained?

120

1 A. Yes.
2 Q. And you removed that part?
3 A. And the terms in which he registered his unhappiness,
4 I entirely understood and I accepted. It was most
5 unfortunate in those days that we had these ways of
6 proceeding but I managed to get another bite at the cake
7 as it were. Looking back at it, it is not very nice.
8 Q. No. That is what you said and we have on the same page
9 at the bottom what E said:
10 "[Witness A] brought to the [job] an operational
11 mind, bristling with ideas, some brilliant, some
12 preposterous (cf K2)."
13 The "cf K2" is a reference back to the topic you had
14 written about?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Which, thus, E is describing as preposterous?
17 A. I think that must be what he says.
18 Q. No doubt, you will accept that some of A's ideas were
19 brilliant, if this was not?
20 A. Undoubtedly. The vast majority. In fact, I think this
21 is the only one which fell by the wayside.
22 Q. That is the end of 1993 and the first few weeks of 1994.
23 Without trawling the detail, because we have heard a lot
24 of it, we know that Richard Tomlinson's manuscript was
25 delivered up towards the end of 1996, and a damage

121

1 review was undertaken dealing with the content of
2 the manuscript.
3 Were you at all involved in that?
4 A. No, I was not.
5 Q. So, does it follow that you were not asked at that
6 stage, so far as you can recollect, anything about
7 the proposal that A had made which, as you know, emerged
8 into Richard Tomlinson's draft, albeit you would say
9 under the wrong --
10 A. That is correct.
11 Q. But you were not asked anything at that stage?
12 A. No I was not.
13 Q. We have seen, through Witness A, a memorandum setting
14 out what happened, which he wrote in 1998 when the topic
15 erupted into the press.
16 Did anyone ask you for your recollection of events
17 then or at all in the late 1990s?
18 A. Not that I recall and certainly my understanding is that
19 a trawl of the records has yielded absolutely nothing
20 involving me in writing. So I do not recall that, I am
21 afraid.
22 Q. As far as you can recollect, the statements that you
23 made to the Metropolitan Police in January 2005 was
24 the first time that you had considered this matter since
25 signing off the confidential report in January 1994?

122

1 A. Yes, that is correct.
2 Q. 11 years earlier, almost to the day?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR BURNETT: Thank you very much, those are my questions.
5 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield?
6 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
7 MR MANSFIELD: Good afternoon, my name is Michael Mansfield
8 and I represent Mohamed Al Fayed and I have some
9 questions to ask. I apologise for the date, as usual.
10 It is a long time ago.
11 Could we have the document back on screen, please?
12 The typed version is easier. [INQ0061257]
13 These are questions as it were directed towards what
14 kind of thinking occasionally cropped up within various
15 departments. Do you follow? That is why I am going to
16 ask you the questions.
17 You will see tucked away in this manuscript that has
18 been typed up:
19 "I have discussed [that is you] with [this person we
20 know as E, that is the head of the controllerate:
21 " ... whose guidance to [A] was designed simply to
22 establish what exactly he was driving at ..."
23 I want to ask you about --
24 A. Go ahead.
25 Q. Can you remember speaking to E first of all?

123

1 A. Yes.
2 Q. You can. Did he say to you "I cannot remember anything
3 about this"?
4 A. Not at the time, no.
5 Q. Did he say to you, "I never spoke to [A]"?
6 A. I do not recall him saying anything like that, no.
7 Q. So what did he say to A?
8 A. I am sorry, you will have to ask him that question.
9 Q. No, I am asking you this because it is in here. You
10 have discussed it.
11 A. I think I get the question now.
12 Perhaps I can set the scene slightly? When I am
13 writing a confidential report and I think all line
14 managers have this in mind, if there is an operational
15 incident or something like this which involves other
16 people, then it behoves us really to go and consult.
17 Now, in compiling this, I can state pretty
18 straightforwardly that I will have gone to -- I do not
19 recall the conversation. I will not have made that up.
20 I would have gone to see Witness E and said, you know,
21 he says to me and we have had a bit of a discussion
22 about it and I have taken it out of the main part of his
23 report, and he does not accept this staying in
24 the report because he contests unethical and so on and
25 he says he was encouraged to do so. By who? Well, by

124

1 Witness E. So, I go to see Witness E and I say to him,
2 he maintains that you encouraged him to write it down,
3 and Witness E says to me, yes, of course, because I did
4 not understand what he was driving at.
5 Q. He "did not understand what he was driving at"?
6 A. When it was originally raised with him, I gather orally,
7 but I was not involved with that.
8 Q. This was undoubtedly, as far as you were concerned, an
9 unacceptable proposal but it was a very clear one.
10 I have asked A what he communicated to E. And there is
11 no ambiguity; he was communicating to E the possibility
12 of assassinating X, "X" meaning the target, for all
13 sorts of humanitarian reasons. I am going to go through
14 the explanation but it was a very clear proposal.
15 So, did E say, "I did not ask him to write it down"?
16 What did E say about this proposal that is apparently
17 totally unacceptable?
18 A. I am sorry, I am not sure that I can change what I have
19 already said. It was a straightforward bureaucratic
20 issue as far as I can see from Witness E and from what
21 he said to me. I had to understand, when Witness A said
22 to me "I was encouraged to write this down", that was
23 a perfectly fair statement and I need to find out what
24 that is about and he made it quite clear to me,
25 Witness E did, that all he had done was to say to

125

1 Witness A, "I do not know what you are driving at, can
2 you just put it down on a piece of paper".
3 Now, that is normal practice if you want to stop and
4 consider any.proposal, I would have said, in any
5 responsible organisation.
6 Q. Not this kind of proposal --
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: We had A's evidence about this,
8 Mr Mansfield, on Tuesday. And what A said was that he
9 raised this subject with E at the end of a meeting, and
10 he was asked to go away and write it down. It was all
11 a pretty casual conversation at that stage, was
12 the impression I got from A at that stage.
13 MR MANSFIELD: That was the impression you implied in
14 a question that was put to him.
15 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Well, maybe I was wrong because
16 I did suggest to him that maybe it was that at the end
17 of a long meeting, he was trying to burn him off and
18 he said, "Go away and write it down".
19 MR MANSFIELD: Of course. But then I put to him in
20 the light of your question: one understands if, at the
21 end of a long and busy meeting, a question arises on
22 some peripheral matter, somebody might brush it off and
23 say, "Go and write it down", but if somebody comes at
24 the end of a busy meeting and says, "I have a proposal
25 to assassinate [whoever it is] X, Y, Z", you don't brush

126

1 it off. You just say, "You're mad, don't write it down,
2 I do not want to hear any more about it, this is
3 verboten".
4 Do you follow?
5 A. I follow, I was not there at that conversation, I cannot
6 shed any light on it.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: The trouble is trying to
8 resurrect a conversation 15 years after the event and
9 find out precisely whether the word "assassinate" was in
10 it and so forth.
11 MR MANSFIELD: I am sorry to take a little time on this.
12 I want to suggest very clearly there are people --
13 it is not a matter of routine -- there is a capacity
14 within people within MI6 to think independently and
15 sometimes act independently. Do you follow why I am
16 asking these questions?
17 A. As a general proposition, yes, but not in terms of the
18 particular proposition we are talking about here, no.
19 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thinking outside the box is one
20 thing; acting outside the box perhaps rather different.
21 A. Certainly.
22 MR MANSFIELD: That is why I am asking the questions.
23 I want to come to training as well. If in fact what
24 happened here, as A suggests happened, was that he was
25 encouraged to write it down, that is rather different

127

1 from: we would not ever countenance it, from day one,
2 isn't it?
3 A. You are rather supposing the lines of conversation
4 between A and E, which I was not present at, and
5 therefore cannot comment on, which went something like:
6 I have a proposal to assassinate somebody. I am sure,
7 if it had been presented in those terms, it would have
8 been knocked out --
9 Q. That is what A -- I asked him about this very carefully.
10 In the light of the Coroner's question, I asked him
11 about that and he said yes.
12 What I want to know is what on earth E meant by
13 "it was guidance, designed simply to establish what
14 exactly he was driving at".
15 Can you tell me what he meant by "guidance"?
16 A. I am sorry, it might have been slightly flowery
17 language, "guidance", it really means instruction, write
18 it down.
19 Q. That is all it meant.
20 At the bottom there is a comment by E which you may
21 not be able to deal with, because you have said all his
22 ideas except for this one, is that right?
23 A. Yes. "All" might have been a slight excess of
24 enthusiasm.
25 Q. What is the "preposterous" nature of some of his other

128

1 ones? "Some preposterous ..."
2 A. I am sorry, I cannot speak for --
3 Q. You don't know what the other ones are?
4 A. No, I do not know what he was referring to.
5 Q. How many copies of this document existed?
6 A. Which document?
7 Q. The document that contained a proposal to assassinate X?
8 A. I do not know the answer to that question.
9 Q. Who does?
10 A. I do not know the answer to that question either.
11 I think you have asked Witness A. I do not recall
12 straightaway what he said. I will try to help you as
13 best I can.
14 Q. Yes?
15 A. My recollection for what it is worth -- it was less than
16 a handful. I have seen Witness A's own remarks on this.
17 And he thinks he copied it to Witness G, I think it is,
18 yes, Witness G. I would not rule out his having copied
19 it to somebody else but I can only offer you supposition
20 on that. That is the best I can do.
21 Q. There is a reason again for asking, given what we have
22 been led to believe happens in terms of security of
23 documentation and so on. You cannot help us about how
24 many there actually were. Did anybody establish how
25 many copies there were?

129

1 A. Once they had been destroyed, no. But I can assure you
2 that there would have been no more than possibly two.
3 Q. You said a handful?
4 A. I said less than a handful, I think.
5 Q. Two you say?
6 A. That is my best guess, two. But I cannot really be
7 quoted on that as an accurate statement because my
8 recollection is hazy.
9 Q. Everyone wants us to believe that it was all taken
10 terribly seriously and sat on. I am not questioning
11 the fact that, despite A's intention, it was addressed
12 "To E for action". That is what he has told us; did you
13 know that it was addressed "To E for action"?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You knew that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. You see, if it was something that was looked into at the
18 time, you would have to have a record of destruction,
19 wouldn't you, for a white document?
20 A. I think we have already been through this.
21 Q. Not with you, we have not.
22 A. I have nothing really to add because I am afraid I did
23 not deal with paper procedures.
24 Q. Surely you would have been aware of what the policy was
25 on shredding?

130

1 A. Policy on shredding? I think we had a practice of
2 shredding. I do not recall any policy.
3 Q. The practice on shredding. You knew what the practice
4 on shredding was, given your line management position;
5 you would have to know what the practice was, wouldn't
6 you?
7 A. I am not sure what you are driving at.
8 Q. What I am driving at is there is no record, as there
9 should have been, I suggest, for an accountable
10 substantive document. There is no record of who took
11 the decision that they should be destroyed, how many
12 there were, why it was to be destroyed and when they
13 were destroyed. Nothing.
14 Now, can you explain that?
15 A. I can explain as best I can my understanding, which is
16 that the idea simply did not go any further and, on the
17 basis that it remained within the department and was not
18 going to go anywhere else, that it was stifled at
19 the very beginning. That was the end of it. It was
20 destroyed, we would not accept it on the archive because
21 it was completely against the ethos of the service.
22 We don't keep documents which are against the ethos of
23 the service, we don't have documents like this.
24 Q. You see, whether it is against the ethos or not, that is
25 a separate question. The question I am asking is,

131

1 the practice was at the time, even if it is against
2 the ethos, is that there should be a record kept of the
3 decision-maker in terms of the shredding, the number of
4 copies, and also who actually does the shredding as
5 well, of all the copies. And there is no documentation.
6 That is the question.
7 A. My understanding is there is a witness statement,
8 Witness F, which has gone into the records.
9 Q. Yes, Witness F says that it was a formal document. We
10 have heard that read. I am on a different issue. Is it
11 right that you have no explanation of why there is no
12 record anywhere of who took the decision to shred, let
13 alone how many copies there were and the reason for
14 the shredding. There is no record of that, is there?
15 A. Not that I am aware, no. Nor that we would actually
16 require such --
17 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: From the point of view of your
18 experience and the way the system worked, had
19 the proposal gone far enough for the document to become
20 not shreddable?
21 A. I see what you mean, to become substantive in other
22 words. No, it had not.
23 MR MANSFIELD: The regulation was that the moment it leaves
24 the section and is circulated.
25 A. It did not leave the section.

132

1 Q. It left the Balkans section to go to the controllerate?
2 A. He is part of our command.
3 Q. Yes, he is in a different room, isn't he?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. He is not in the section, is he, he is in part of the
6 controllerate?
7 A. As far as I am concerned, this is semantic. He was --
8 within one point of command, the decision was taken
9 "we don't want to put this up". If you try to consider
10 it from our position, my position, if you allow
11 a document like this to go further, to become
12 substantive, actually I think we would have risked
13 ridicule from senior management. We would also have
14 been asked, why are we wasting their time? This simply
15 would not have been acceptable.
16 Q. Is there a policy of deniability within the department?
17 A. I think you already know that deniability is one of the
18 techniques that we have as a service.
19 Q. Within the department?
20 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: That is not very clearly put,
21 Mr Mansfield.
22 Sir Richard dealt with this. I mentioned the point
23 yesterday. I think his evidence was to the effect that
24 deniability to the world outside was one thing, but
25 deniability inside was totally different and not

133

1 acceptable.
2 MR MANSFIELD: Quite. And that is why --
3 You were aware of that, were you?
4 A. Absolutely.
5 Q. So from an inside point of view, I suggest, if this was
6 just a bit of lateral thinking that went on in
7 a particular individual and was exceptional, you could
8 keep it, couldn't you, and just say it has been dealt
9 with, it is not acted on? What would be the need to
10 destroy it?
11 A. I think I have already said that the service's archive
12 is a record -- I will put it in a slightly different way
13 if you like. The service's archive is a record of what
14 it does, a record which contains the actions and
15 the operations that it is engaged in in furtherance of
16 Her Majesty's Government policies.
17 Q. Are you aware of a particular part of that record, as it
18 were, called "special ephemeral messages file"?
19 A. No, I am not.
20 Q. Have you ever heard of it?
21 A. No, I have not, actually.
22 Q. As far as A's concern, the direction which -- of course
23 you are looking back a long time now -- appears to have
24 come from you to A to destroy the copies, was that
25 carried out immediately?

134

1 A. As far as I am aware, I actually have seen Witness F's
2 statement which states that I stood over her whilst she
3 proceeded to destroy them. I am afraid I have to say
4 that I do not recall doing so. This would have been an
5 extremely minor issue for me on any particular day.
6 I can appreciate that, from your point of view, you
7 regard this as being highly significant. For me during
8 what I am afraid was always a very busy day during an
9 emergency, it was an extremely minor matter. So I do
10 not recall.
11 Q. No, I accept on a human basis things get overlooked and
12 people do things they should not do. Did you know in
13 fact that they were not all destroyed then?
14 A. I did not at the time.
15 Q. You do now?
16 A. I have seen Witness A's statement.
17 Q. Does that surprise you?
18 A. Does it surprise me? I am not sure whether it surprises
19 me is either here or there, is it?
20 Q. Well --
21 A. Not in some ways. He explains -- and I can understand
22 looking back to the time when he and I talked about
23 this -- that he thought that this was a reasonable
24 proposal, all things considered. And I think he said he
25 thought it was conceivable that we might find ourselves

135

1 in a position where we would need to go back to it.
2 I can understand in those terms.
3 Q. But did he ever tell you that he had kept a copy?
4 A. No, he did not.
5 Q. So, what it means is -- I appreciate for you it is just
6 a minor part of your day, but what it means is that
7 somebody -- he was head, so he says, of the Balkan
8 Target Team. Is that right?
9 A. Those words will do for the purposes of now.
10 Q. I am not wishing to trespass, obviously. How long had
11 he been in the service?
12 A. I do not recall actually, at that time.
13 Q. So not only does he have totally unacceptable thoughts,
14 he also writes them down because E has told him to, and
15 he does not destroy all the copies when he is told to;
16 he hangs on to, so we are told, at least one.
17 So it does show, even in this minor area, do you not
18 agree, that operatives, whatever you call them, officers
19 within MI6, are quite capable of stepping outside
20 the box, aren't they?
21 A. I do not think that "stepping outside the box",
22 retaining a piece of writing that you have done
23 yourself, you know it is no longer going anywhere, it
24 has been stifled, he has held the piece of paper for
25 himself, purely as part of his float, perhaps, where you

136

1 keep documents that you have issued yourself.
2 Q. But you did not know he had it and you have never asked
3 any questions. Do you know what he said very recently
4 about why he kept it?
5 A. Go ahead.
6 Q. Do you know what he said?
7 A. I seem to recall that he said he kept it against
8 the possibility that we might need to revisit this.
9 Q. Exactly. So the policy of unacceptability when, as it
10 were, an individual thinks it might be necessary does
11 not necessarily work.
12 A. Sorry, could you say that again?
13 Q. In other words, the policy of unacceptability, which you
14 say is inculcated from the word go, does not always
15 affect anyone to whom it is told, does it?
16 A. I would make a distinction between keeping a piece of
17 paper and actually doing something about it and I am
18 quite clear in my own mind that Witness A took that
19 proposal no further.
20 Q. Now, on the training course, do you know what he said
21 about what was being said in relation to the "use of
22 force", is how I put it to him?
23 A. Sorry, could you repeat that? On the training course --
24 Q. Yes. You have indicated in your statement and today
25 that in fact assassination or the use of lethal force,

137

1 however you put it, was explained from day one and
2 everybody is very clear about it. Is that right?
3 A. I can only say about the time that I was there. I was
4 there on a couple of occasions, in 1987 I think it was.
5 Q. Well, we have had two witnesses dealing with this.
6 Tomlinson is one but I will leave him out of it. I am
7 dealing with A, one of your staff. He told us that on
8 the training course, one, he did not get a training
9 manual but I leave that to one side; and when asked
10 about the advice that he got on the use of force, he
11 said "virtually nothing". Is he right?
12 A. Who said "virtually nothing"?
13 Q. A has said that on the training course virtually nothing
14 was said about the use of force?
15 A. Are you asking me about my training course back in
16 the 1970s?
17 Q. No. Not yours. He obviously went on one, I can't put
18 to you exactly when he went on one, we have the dates,
19 but it was later than that.
20 A. Sorry, I went on a training course in the 1970s.
21 Q. All right. It is obvious that you are not familiar with
22 what training courses that he went on might have said?
23 A. That Witness A went on?
24 Q. Yes.
25 A. I was not there. It was his course, I am sorry.

138

1 Q. I think I can finish this quite quickly. You accept
2 there does not appear to have been at the time any
3 investigation of this matter by a senior officer. I do
4 not mean yourself and I do not mean E.
5 A. I was not involved in any further investigation.
6 Q. It follows from what you have also said to Mr Burnett
7 that in fact nobody interviewed you, you did not make
8 any statement on any earlier occasion than the one
9 we have in 2005.
10 A. That is correct. As far as I recall.
11 MR MANSFIELD: Yes, thank you.
12 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Keen?
13 Questions from MR KEEN
14 MR KEEN: Good afternoon, Witness H. My name is Richard
15 Keen. I would like to ask you a few questions if I may.
16 A. Certainly.
17 Q. You have already seen, heard or read the evidence of
18 Mr A given to the inquest.
19 A. That is correct.
20 Q. And you have heard read the evidence of Witness F, is
21 that also correct?
22 A. I have seen the witness statement.
23 Q. Did you see or hear or read the evidence of Sir Richard
24 Dearlove?
25 A. Yes, I did.

139

1 Q. You have indicated that with regard to certain matters,
2 which of course occurred many years ago, you have no
3 actual recollection of certain events, for example no
4 actual recollection of when or how you came to see A's
5 written proposal.
6 A. Is this a statement or are you asking me a question?
7 Q. Is that an accurate summary of your position?
8 A. That I do not recall when I saw it? What I said earlier
9 today is that I now think that the first time I saw it
10 was when the controller, Witness E, placed it on my desk
11 and engaged me in conversation about it.
12 Q. And that is something that you concluded having heard
13 Witness A's evidence to this inquest.
14 A. Yes, I have to say that I was persuaded by his very
15 clear recollection, whereas mine is hazy, that he had
16 actually excluded me from the distribution.
17 Q. That really is my point, Witness H.
18 What we are hearing to some extent, at least, is not
19 your recollection of events but your rationalisation of
20 events on the basis of having heard and read other
21 people?
22 A. My apologies. I certainly don't intend it to be that.
23 If you would like me to go through it again, I am very
24 happy to try to elucidate further if that needs to be
25 done. I will tell you as much as I can tell you. Where

140

1 it's deduction -- that I know from knowledge, if you
2 like, and memory, it is very little, except for
3 the really headline points.
4 As to the rest, where it is deduction, I hope I have
5 made it clear where that is the case.
6 Q. The point I simply want to address with you is that much
7 of what you have said in evidence is not the product of
8 your own immediate recollection of events but, as you
9 say, the product of deduction or rationalisation having
10 heard the evidence of, for example Witness A.
11 A. Would you like to give me an example?
12 Q. I think you gave one yourself when you gave your
13 evidence, Witness A, because you began by seeking to
14 correct something that you had said in your statement in
15 2005?
16 A. Yes, well, I really wanted to try to put the record
17 there straight, from the very beginning. There is
18 a risk of misleading people.
19 Q. Indeed but the point is this: you were not putting
20 the record straight because you had subsequently
21 recollected that events were different; you were putting
22 the record straight because you had heard the evidence
23 of Witness A and had been persuaded by his account.
24 A. I suppose I could have left it that my witness
25 statements stood unchanged and then we could have spent

141

1 a lot of time discussing whether I saw it going up or
2 coming down; if you would have found that helpful,
3 I would have been happy to do so.
4 Q. Could I make this plain, I am not seeking to catch you
5 out in any way. I am trying to establish to what extent
6 we are hearing your own recollection of events and to
7 what extent we are merely hearing your ex-post facto
8 rationalisation in light of having heard or having read
9 the evidence of other witnesses, do you understand?
10 A. I do and I think I have made it as clear as I possibly
11 can that where I think my witness statements, made in
12 2005, need amending, I have said so to that effect.
13 If you think there is something incorrect and
14 inappropriate about that, then please do say so and I am
15 happy to address it.
16 Q. As I proceed to ask you a number of questions, when you
17 answer, if you feel that you are answering on the basis
18 of rationalisation or deduction rather than
19 recollection, would you please indicate if that is
20 the case?
21 A. Certainly.
22 Q. Now, Witness H, at the time you were designated as
23 a line manager?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. And you were in line of management above A?

142

1 A. That is correct.
2 Q. And you know, having heard A's evidence, that he very
3 deliberately and consciously decided that he would not
4 report his proposal to you but would, as it were, leave
5 you out of the loop and report it to someone who was
6 senior to you?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And I note you nod and I appreciate that because I can
9 see it, but if you are agreeing with something, could
10 you also say so because obviously the shorthand note has
11 to reflect it.
12 A. I think I did say yes, but I am happy to say it again.
13 Q. It is just at an earlier stage. But thank you.
14 A. Not at all.
15 Q. Now, Witness A has indicated in the past that he
16 prepared a document which appears to have been headed
17 "Proposed plan to assassinate X", having already spent
18 two minutes outlining this plan to Witness E, who was
19 senior to you?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Now, did you at any stage ask Witness A why he had, as
22 it were, cut you out of this proposal and gone directly
23 to Witness E?
24 A. My recollection is very hazy on this. I do not recall.
25 However -- and I am going to use these words very

143

1 carefully, because you asked me to do so -- I deduce
2 from Witness A's statement that I did indeed take this
3 up with him.
4 Q. Would it have been usual for Witness A in his position
5 to come up with a proposal which he tells us was a white
6 paper proposal -- I do not want to delve into what that
7 means at the moment -- and instead of taking that to
8 you, his line manager, to go over your head to
9 Witness E, was that usual?
10 A. No, it was not usual.
11 Q. It was highly exceptional perhaps?
12 A. It was highly unusual and I do not recall any other
13 examples of this happening.
14 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Probably not a very good tactical
15 move either.
16 A. I'm slightly more easy-going about these things now,
17 sir, than perhaps I was then.
18 MR KEEN: It also probably depends upon when you were going
19 to be informed about what had happened.
20 A. As we saw, I was informed very quickly.
21 Q. Indeed, you were informed. According to Witness A's
22 evidence, he gained the impression when you eventually
23 spoke to him that knowledge of his proposal had spread
24 to the 10th floor which is the policy floor of the
25 building, is it not?

144

1 A. That is correct. It is correct that the 10th floor was
2 where the policy people were. Am I saying it is correct
3 to something else as well?
4 Q. Do you, like Witness A, recall giving him
5 the impression, as he recollected, that knowledge of his
6 proposal had spread to the 10th floor?
7 A. Thank you for elaborating that. I do not recall making
8 that clear/saying it. No, I do not.
9 Q. So we only have Witness A's recollection to rely on?
10 A. Absolutely.
11 Q. Very well.
12 A. I cannot exclude the possibility that it came to me from
13 Witness E and I passed it on.
14 Q. Can you indicate what position G would have held at
15 the relevant time?
16 A. G was our security adviser.
17 Q. And was the security adviser someone who stood aside
18 from the section, the Balkans section itself?
19 A. Yes, that is correct.
20 Q. And accordingly if, as Witness A has told us, his
21 proposal was copied to Witness G, it was copied outwith
22 the Balkans section?
23 A. To an adviser to our section, I suppose in
24 constitutional terms, possibly. But he was part of our
25 team. I am not talking line management terms; I am

145

1 talking in terms of people who worked together. I am
2 talking in pragmatic terms.
3 Q. When you gave your evidence a few minutes ago about
4 Witness E coming into your office, what you actually
5 said was that Witness E had addressed you in these
6 terms: make sure you get rid of it, out of the archive,
7 all copies destroyed.
8 Now, would you agree with me, Witness H, that as
9 a matter of logic you can only get something out of
10 the archive if it is already in the archive?
11 A. Right. I suppose my choice of words might have been
12 a bit infelicitous there. Getting it out of the
13 archive? No, it had not arrived on the archive, it
14 should not go on the archive, I stand corrected.
15 Q. Would you agree with me as a matter of logic that you
16 cannot get something out of the archive unless it is
17 already in the archive?
18 A. Absolutely. It did not go on the archive.
19 Q. Your earlier evidence was that E came into the office
20 and said: make sure you get rid of it, out of the
21 archive, all copies destroyed?
22 A. I think I have already said that that was perhaps not
23 particularly felicitously worded.
24 Q. But again, what are we getting here? Are we getting
25 your rationalisation or your recollection, Witness H?

146

1 A. You are getting my second attempt to get it right, if
2 you like, in terms of my words here and now. My
3 recollection is absolutely clear, this was not to go on
4 the archive. It did not go on the archive. That is
5 a fact.
6 Q. Well, can I just allude to a further comment that you
7 made in evidence lest you want to tell us that it was
8 infelicitous; what you said is "we don't keep documents
9 which are against the ethos of the service"; was that
10 a true and accurate statement, Witness H?
11 A. In this particular case, yes. That is what I am
12 talking -- that is all I can talk about because actually
13 in my entire service career, I have not come across
14 another document which has been asked to be destroyed.
15 Q. You won't because, if as you say, you don't keep
16 documents which are against the ethos of the service, no
17 doubt that involves destroying them at the first
18 opportunity, doesn't it?
19 A. I am talking about my own personal experience. Nobody
20 ever asked me nor did I ever witness any case of
21 somebody asking for documents to be destroyed.
22 Q. Do you suppose that your position and ethos might have
23 been perceived to be different to that of others, such
24 as Witness E, with the result that Witness A would know
25 that a proposal of this kind should not be routed to

147

1 you, his line manager, but as you indicate yourself
2 quite exceptionally, taken over your head and taken
3 directly to someone who was senior to you?
4 A. No, I do not.
5 Q. Why do you suppose Witness A went over your head,
6 excluded you and took your proposal directly to
7 Witness E?
8 A. I think probably that is for him to say, rather than me.
9 I think he has already had a statement to make on that.
10 There is nothing really useful I can say, if you are
11 asking me why he did it.
12 Q. And you don't recall that he told you when you asked
13 him?
14 A. I do not. No.
15 Q. You have read Witness A's evidence about having actually
16 made a copy of this document for himself and put it into
17 his personal office safe, haven't you?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Would that be usual intelligence service practice at the
20 time?
21 A. In terms of documents that you are using all the time,
22 it is not unusual to keep a small float of your recent
23 correspondence and that is for the purposes of quick
24 reference. I used to do it myself, in terms of quick
25 access to recent documents.

148

1 Q. And in your view, would a document headed up "Proposal
2 for the assassination of X" fall into that category of
3 recent correspondence?
4 A. In my case, it would not. Because I would not have had
5 a document like that in my cupboard.
6 Q. Surely, Witness H, one thing the intelligence services
7 attempt to do is keep tabs on their own secret
8 intelligence documents?
9 A. Indeed.
10 Q. And for that purpose, one of the basics is to understand
11 who has a copy of what. Is that not right?
12 A. I would say Witness A certainly kept a tab on his
13 documents and all other copies and the original, however
14 many copies there may have been, were destroyed.
15 Q. But unbeknown to you, Witness A had a copy of this
16 document in his own personal safe.
17 A. Right.
18 Q. Is that usual intelligence service practice with regard
19 to the tracing and recording of policy documents with
20 proposals of any kind?
21 A. I do not suppose it is usual practice with a document
22 like this. Because it is the only document of its sort.
23 But I am talking -- you are talking now about a specific
24 document. If you are talking about the generality of
25 practice, as I said, it is not unusual for officers --

149

1 or it was not unusual for officers in those days, and we
2 are talking about paper copies, access is not quite so
3 difficult these days, to have kept a small float of
4 recent documents.
5 Q. Of documents he is using all the time I think you said
6 before.
7 A. Documents he might need to refer to. "Might need to",
8 this is contingency. If you think about it, it is
9 contingency, access to a document about a contingency
10 plan. Lots of contingency.
11 Q. Taking up your reference to contingency, when asked
12 about Witness A retaining this document after you told
13 him all copies were to be destroyed, what you actually
14 said was:
15 "Answer: Well, he thought he was a reasonable
16 proposal, we might go back to it, I can understand it in
17 those terms."
18 Now, I do not want to take your evidence out of
19 context, Witness H, but when you are actually pressed on
20 why Witness A kept this document, that was your express
21 response, "we might go back to it"?
22 A. I think this was at the time of his confidential report
23 that we are talking about, isn't it?
24 Q. Not at all.
25 A. Isn't it in the context of that that we were talking

150

1 about his possibly having to revisit it, might find it
2 useful to revisit it?
3 Q. You think he put a copy of this document into his
4 personal office safe in case he had to refer back to it
5 for the purposes of his personal report?
6 A. I am sorry, I cannot say what he thought.
7 Q. Even though you have read his evidence.
8 A. I have read his evidence, yes.
9 Q. Did you ask A at any time why he had retained a copy of
10 this document?
11 A. No, because the first time I knew about it was when
12 I read his evidence.
13 Q. So right up until that time you are unaware of
14 the retention of a copy of this document?
15 A. That is correct.
16 Q. Were you aware that he had shown it to Richard
17 Tomlinson?
18 A. No, I was not.
19 Q. Did that not even emerge after Mr Tomlinson's book and
20 the damage limitation exercise that was carried out as
21 a consequence of that?
22 A. I deduce it must have done but I was not involved in
23 that.
24 Q. Were you not even interviewed in relation to the damage
25 limitation exercise?

151

1 A. My recollection is I was not.
2 Q. And yet you were A's line manager and he was identified
3 as the source of this assassination proposal?
4 A. All I can say is that he appears to have been
5 interviewed and, judging by such documentation as I have
6 given, he has given an extremely full and satisfactory
7 account of what happened.
8 Q. So, as far as you are concerned, it is entirely
9 satisfactory to take a copy of a proposal such as this,
10 to photocopy it, without there being any record of the
11 copy being made and to retain it?
12 A. I suspect if we want to talk about details like that,
13 it was probably a carbon copy in those days, not
14 a photocopy.
15 Q. Does that improve the position at all?
16 A. No, all I am saying is it would have come off with
17 the original.
18 Q. Did you at any stage discuss with E his reaction to A's
19 proposal landing on his desk?
20 A. Yes, certainly. I think we saw earlier the bit that
21 I put into his confidential report.
22 That was the only record we have of a conversation
23 I had with him. I simply cannot rule out
24 the possibility that I did have a discussion with him
25 immediately afterwards. But I am afraid I do not recall

152

1 it.
2 Q. But even at that stage, you were unaware of other copies
3 of this proposal still being in existence or potentially
4 in existence?
5 A. Other copies of this proposal? They were ordered to be
6 destroyed on the day. So --
7 Q. And did you ever enquire as to why A had not destroyed
8 his copy on the day?
9 A. I think I have already said that I was unaware that he
10 had a copy.
11 Q. How would you have reacted if you had become aware that
12 he had retained a copy after your instruction for
13 destruction?
14 A. I would have asked for it to be destroyed straightaway,
15 of course.
16 Q. Would you not have queried his motivation for not
17 destroying it straightaway as instructed?
18 A. I am sorry to say this but I think he was -- we all
19 were -- very, very busy with other things, and
20 productive work for which we were required to put in
21 the effort and the bureaucratic, dare I say it -- and it
22 will not sound good, I know, all these years later, it
23 sounds as if it is what these inquests are about, but
24 I am trying to put it into proportion -- it was not an
25 issue which we, or I was too concerned about after

153

1 the main action had been taken. That main action was
2 first of all to ensure that the officer concerned knew
3 that it was unacceptable, that we would not do this sort
4 of thing and that it would not go on the record.
5 That was our mindset.
6 Q. And with regard to the mindset, it would not go on the
7 record because, as you told us earlier, "we", meaning
8 the Secret Intelligence Service, "do not keep documents
9 which are against the ethos of the service".
10 A. Sorry, what is your question?
11 Q. Is that the position?
12 A. That we don't keep documents? We don't put on the
13 records --
14 Q. You don't keep documents?
15 A. I can only talk about this, because it is the only
16 example I have come across; it is the only case and
17 we do not keep these documents. Yes.
18 Q. So if anybody wants to look back and see what steps or
19 actions are taken by the Secret Intelligence Service
20 that might be considered contrary to its ethos, they
21 will find no record of that because such documents are
22 already destroyed?
23 A. Sorry, you cut right to the end without all of
24 the essential middle bit which is that we would have
25 taken all the decisions to ensure that any unethical

154

1 behaviour was not engaged in.
2 Q. Unless you as the line manager were cut out of the loop?
3 A. I am sorry, I think my superior took exactly the same
4 position and I think probably everybody else would have
5 done, in fact I am certain.
6 MR KEEN: Thank you, no further questions, sir.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Croxford?
8 MR CROXFORD: No thank you, sir.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Tam?
10 MR TAM: Thank you, sir.
11 Questions from MR TAM
12 MR TAM: There is one thing. I am Robin Tam, asking
13 questions on behalf of SIS.
14 You had secretaries and PAs in the office for all
15 the secretarial-type jobs. Would preparing the tally
16 sheets and sending out the markers tally and so on have
17 been something with which you would have concerned
18 yourself or would you have left it to them?
19 A. I would have left it to them, absolutely.
20 Q. So in terms of who would have been more familiar with
21 the nuts and bolts of the minute recording system, would
22 that be you or would that be Witness F?
23 A. That would be Witness F.
24 Q. We heard from Witness F or had her statement this
25 morning about what she did with the minute and the tally

155

1 sheet. You would not be able to shed any more light on
2 it than that, would you?
3 A. No, I am sorry.
4 Q. I am not going to go into the detail of this, but one of
5 the things that she had said that was read this morning:
6 "To my knowledge, the minute never left the section
7 and was not registered."
8 Would you agree with that?
9 A. Yes, that is my understanding, at the end of the day.
10 Q. And if the minute was not registered, was there any
11 requirement to go through the rigmarole of destroying
12 the formal recorded minute?
13 A. No.
14 MR TAM: Thank you very much.
15 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Burnett?
16 MR BURNETT: Just two questions.
17 Further questions from MR BURNETT
18 MR BURNETT: My learned friend Mr Mansfield put to you an
19 observation by Witness A that on his training course he
20 was told virtually nothing about the use of force. You
21 remember Mr Mansfield putting that to you?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Do you remember what Witness A went on to say, to
24 explain the use of the words "virtually nothing"?
25 A. No, I do not, I am sorry.

156

1 Q. Let me see if I can jog your memory. He added:
2 "Because the use of force did not figure in
3 the training."
4 Does that sound right, even at the time you were
5 trained?
6 A. Most certainly, most certainly.
7 MR BURNETT: Sir, there is one other matter which is not
8 really a question for the witness but I think my learned
9 friend Mr Keen might inadvertently have overstated
10 something when questioning Witness H. This is on the
11 question of whether A copied G in on the minute.
12 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes.
13 MR BURNETT: My learned friend has suggested that A has said
14 he did copy in Witness G. If one looks at
15 the transcript at page 182, he said he might have done,
16 he said he was not sure and he said the same thing in
17 three or four different ways.
18 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Yes and G has no recollection.
19 MR BURNETT: No. Sir, those are my questions.
20 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you very much. That is all
21 we require. Thank you for coming and casting your mind
22 back over all these years.
23 We have to adjourn now to set up the videolink for
24 America. Hopefully that will not take more than ten
25 minutes, we will have our break now, members of the

157

1 jury.
2 (3.15 pm)
3 (A short break)
4 (3.29 pm)
5 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Good afternoon, Mr Posner, can
6 you hear me? Unfortunately I cannot hear you.
7 THE WITNESS: That may be to your benefit.
8 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: That is better. We are just
9 waiting for the jury to be brought back into court and
10 then we will begin.
11 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
12 (Jury present)
13 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: I call next Mr Posner. Perhaps
14 he could be sworn.
15 MR GERALD POSNER (affirmed)
16 Questions from MR BURNETT
17 (Evidence via videolink)
18 MR BURNETT: In a moment, Mr Posner, you might be able to
19 see me.
20 A. I can.
21 Q. My name is Ian Burnett and I shall be asking you some
22 questions on behalf of the Coroner today and, when
23 I have finished, other counsel who are instructed by
24 interested persons in these proceedings will ask their
25 questions as well. You understand that?

158

1 A. I do.
2 Q. Is your name Gerald Leo Posner?
3 A. It is.
4 Q. And are you a writer and journalist?
5 A. I am. And also an attorney, although I do not practise.
6 Q. You started your professional life as a lawyer in
7 New York before you turned to non-fiction writing.
8 A. That is correct.
9 Q. Now, Mr Posner, is it right that you made a statement to
10 Metropolitan Police officers in connection with events
11 of interest in these inquests dated 16th February 2005?
12 A. That is correct.
13 Q. And do you have a copy of that statement with you?
14 A. I do not have a copy of that statement, unfortunately,
15 with me. I am relying on you for the accuracy of
16 the dates but I do indeed remember making the statement
17 and providing information to them.
18 Q. Now, it will not be necessary for me to take you through
19 much of the statement. There are just one or two topics
20 in due course that I will wish to ask you.
21 But by way of background, is it right that towards
22 the end of 1998, Tina Brown commissioned you to write
23 a piece for a publication called Talk magazine?
24 A. That is correct. As a matter of fact, Tina Brown, who
25 I believe is OBE, Order of the British Empire, married

159

1 to Harold Evans, Sir Harold Evans who had been
2 the editor of the London Sunday Times, Tina had run two
3 very successful magazines in America, Vanity Fair and
4 then the New Yorker, I had worked for her as a writer at
5 the New Yorker.
6 Talk magazine was a new magazine that she was
7 launching as a partnership between Hearst Publishing,
8 a major American publisher, together with Miramax,
9 a film company. She came to me because she wanted me to
10 write an article for the premier issue of Talk which
11 would be published in August of 1999 near the second
12 anniversary, the anniversary of Diana's death, to do an
13 investigation into that death and to find out if there
14 was information that was new for the record.
15 Q. So your task was to research matters and write a piece
16 for the magazine, and in due course, you did write
17 a piece for the magazine which was published?
18 A. Yes and I had, by the standards of a writer, although
19 I primarily work on non-fiction books, as a writer for a
20 from magazine, I had a remarkably long time to
21 investigate and research this subject, allowing me to
22 get to areas that otherwise a journalist in a two- or
23 three-week deadline would not be able to. Tina Brown
24 gave me several months to go off and spend my time, day
25 in in and day out, on this matter.

160

1 Q. It is right that you sought the assistance of and
2 received assistance from Stuart Benson who was then
3 Mohamed Al Fayed's lawyer?
4 A. Absolutely. Mr Benson was forthcoming. My wife and I,
5 Trisha Posner, an author in her own right, met with
6 Mr Benson in his offices in London and he was very
7 helpful.
8 Q. And he provided you with a fair amount of documentary
9 material, is that right?
10 A. Provided me access to some of the investigative work
11 that had been done on behalf of the Fayed team. To what
12 extent I saw -- whether I saw 10 per cent of what they
13 had accumulated or 90 per cent, I have no idea.
14 Q. Did you see any original statements that had arisen in
15 the course of the French official investigation?
16 A. I do not recall. We are going back now and I am
17 trying -- knowing this testimony was coming, I have been
18 discussing with my wife the best of our recollection on
19 different events. This is going back nine years ago
20 this very month that I was doing this work. I do not
21 recall any original documentation.
22 There may have been summary documents of what was in
23 French files. There may have been summary but
24 I certainly did not leave with any photocopies of
25 documents. I did in fact have notes that I took on

161

1 a computer at the time from my review of documents in
2 his file.
3 Q. You will appreciate, I am sure, Mr Posner, that the jury
4 in London here, who I do not think you can necessarily
5 see on your screen, have been listening to evidence for
6 the best part of five months now, and in due course,
7 they will make their mind up on all the evidence they
8 will hear, so I am not going to be taking you through
9 your investigation and your conclusions. You will
10 understand that, I am sure.
11 A. I do.
12 Q. But there is one aspect of your investigation which
13 we have not heard evidence of from others and which
14 I will therefore ask you about, even though it is
15 inevitably second-hand or third-hand evidence that you
16 are giving. Are you with me?
17 A. Absolutely.
18 Q. That concerns the question of what Henri Paul was doing
19 in the time between his going off duty and coming back
20 to the Ritz at about 10 o'clock on the night in
21 question.
22 Now, for those who do have your statement nearby, it
23 might assist if I say that I am looking at page 7 of
24 Mr Posner's statement.
25 Mr Posner, in the absence of the statement, do you

162

1 have a reasonably good recollection of the detail you
2 included in what you said to the Metropolitan Police?
3 A. I do and I do not know, Mr Burnett, if you are aware of
4 that I also had submitted an affidavit, a sworn
5 affidavit in an American lawsuit that I do have a copy
6 of. It was Al Fayed v The CIA. I am looking at it here
7 as I look down at the desk.
8 A September 20th, 2000 lawsuit. The representative,
9 legal counsel for Mr Fayed, Mark Zaid out of
10 Washington DC, came to me and asked me to produce
11 a sworn affidavit about this very issue, so I do have
12 that in front of me.
13 Q. You may find that that will assist you as an aide
14 memoire.
15 Now, in trying to investigate what M Paul was doing
16 during those roughly three hours, did you speak to
17 anyone who was able to provide information about it?
18 A. Yes, I did.
19 Q. For whom did that person work?
20 A. I spoke to two individuals, not at the same time, not in
21 the same meeting. I had two sources of information that
22 came to me independently, one unwittingly confirming
23 the other. One was at that time in 1999 an active
24 American law enforcement official. The second
25 individual was a person that I describe in the article

163

1 as an "American intelligence agent", I describe in
2 the affidavit that was submitted to court here in
3 the United States as a person I "believed" to be an
4 American intelligence agent.
5 Q. Can I stick for the moment with the second of those that
6 you have identified, the person you believe to be an
7 American intelligence agent?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. What is the basis for your belief that the person to
10 whom you spoke was an American intelligence agent?
11 A. My conclusion, based upon knowing that individual from
12 previous non-fiction work, as well as the basis for
13 which I was introduced to that person on a previous
14 project. And if I may say, I hope that the jury here
15 may listen to this and think it sounds as though it is
16 splitting hairs and being very nit-picky but I must say
17 as a general overview and I hope this helps: the nature
18 of my work in non-fiction investigative reporting often
19 involves contacts with active members of either law
20 enforcement or retired members of law enforcement or
21 intelligence agencies, individuals over a period of
22 years -- I have been writing now for 25 years with ten
23 different books -- build up a faith in you. There are
24 some sources that become familiar with you and are
25 willing to talk to you about certain items and others

164

1 who will never open up the door and give you the time of
2 day.
3 I do not publish something because somebody sits
4 across a table from me and says: I happen to work for
5 MI6, MI5, the CIA or NSA. I need as a professional to
6 understand that in fact I believe they do, and moreover,
7 not only that they are who they say they are but that
8 the information they are providing to me is credible and
9 that is trustworthy and then, so that this is
10 understood, I go through a process that is rather
11 rigorous, as I did with Talk. I do not just publish
12 the information I have discovered. I go through
13 a rigorous legal check. At Talk magazine they had an
14 aggressive lawyer, Dev Chatillon, Devereux Chatillon who
15 now works for Scholastic Books. She is the only person
16 who knows the identity of these sources that are unnamed
17 in that article because that is protected by
18 attorney/client privilege in the United States but she
19 must make the legal determination that my sources are in
20 fact valid and viable.
21 I provide that information to legal counsel before
22 this is published. So, although the jury may find this
23 cutting hairs and being very undecided about
24 the sources, I hope that they have a better
25 understanding that this is a process that is rather

165

1 rigorous but I have to then protect the identity of that
2 source at any cost.
3 Q. For how long had you known the American intelligence
4 source before 1999?
5 A. Over one year.
6 Q. And are we right to infer that the source had provided
7 you with information in connection with another of your
8 projects or was it only this one?
9 A. If I remember correctly, this is the only information
10 provided to me by this individual that was published.
11 Q. Are you able to tell us how you came into contact with
12 this particular source?
13 A. I wish that I could. I would be very happy to but to do
14 so would be to narrow the window down so that
15 the individuals who would like to identify this source
16 could do so and I do not mean you and the court by this,
17 but I have really assiduously avoided giving
18 information; even in discussing, as you notice,
19 the source, whether it is a he or she, I have tried to
20 be as generic as possible.
21 Q. In the statements that you made to the British police,
22 you identify the source as being in the NSA, which is
23 the United States National Security Agency.
24 Is that right?
25 A. At that time -- not at the time I gave the statement but

166

1 at the time that that source spoke to me, that is
2 correct. I do not know today, by the way, whether that
3 source is still at that agency, employed by the United
4 States Government or retired. I have not been in
5 contact.
6 Q. The source itself, if I can adopt the neutral,
7 the source itself said "NSA", is that how it comes?
8 A. That is right, that is right.
9 Q. In your statement, you explained that the source had
10 learned some information from French colleagues. You
11 remember that?
12 A. Right.
13 Q. Did the source explain to you precisely how
14 the information was conveyed by French colleagues?
15 A. No. I have my own professional hunch as to how that was
16 done but it is nothing more than speculation and
17 therefore, it is useless for you.
18 Q. But did you explore it with the source or not?
19 A. No, I did not, because one of the things I often find in
20 these discussions is, if I am interested in obtaining
21 the information, querying too much about where it comes
22 from makes that source uncomfortable that you are trying
23 to find out about the source behind them. That is not
24 my interest.
25 Q. You go on in the statement to suggest the French

167

1 colleagues were employed by French security agencies.
2 So that is what you gathered from the source, is it?
3 A. "Counterparts" is what I would recall in a general sense
4 being said, so that would be my conclusion.
5 Q. "Counterparts"; from that do we understand individuals
6 working in the French intelligence environment in an
7 organisation that broadly was equivalent to the NSA?
8 A. I do not know whether equivalent to the NSA. I used it
9 certainly -- if it was interpreted that way,
10 I apologise -- because I used "French intelligence
11 services" to be broader than that. If I was using it
12 referring to the United States, it could cover NSA, CIA,
13 Defense Intelligence Agency, so my application of it to
14 the French intelligence agencies would be quite broad.
15 Q. Did you not explore with the source either the number of
16 people to whom the source had spoken or precisely which
17 of the French agencies they came from?
18 A. I did not.
19 Q. So does it follow that you are not able to tell us how
20 direct the source's information was? In other words,
21 how many people through the chain of dissemination it
22 might have passed through, you just don't know?
23 A. Absolutely correct. What I can say without any question
24 is this: I am convinced, based upon my knowledge of this
25 individual that I spoke to, that this person was telling

168

1 me the truth as they believed it to be. If they were
2 fed false information, if they drew the conclusion
3 inappropriately, that is something I cannot judge. But
4 I can tell you that what they told me, they believed to
5 be true and that is what I reported.
6 Q. Of course, it is important usually to know how close
7 the information is to the person giving it. If I were
8 to say to you that the fellow I am standing next to has
9 just told me something, that provides a degree of
10 confidence. If you don't know whether it has come
11 through him and four others, it becomes less confident
12 the further down the chain. You understand that.
13 A. You are absolutely correct. I think that another aspect
14 of making that determination, I think you might agree as
15 well, is, if you had somebody, let's say, who was
16 the editor of The Independent and told you about
17 something that happened in the newsroom, although you
18 might not know who told them, if they were passing along
19 a story, they would be in a position to know because of
20 the position they have.
21 This source that spoke to me is somebody in
22 a position to know this. That much I do realise. It is
23 not somebody at a level so low or in the back of
24 the employment chain that they would pick it up as what
25 I would call gossip around the water cooler. But I do

169

1 not know who told them, I agree.
2 Q. Do you know whether this source picked this information
3 up in the United States or in France?
4 A. I do not know.
5 Q. We perhaps have been keeping a number of people on
6 tenterhooks. Shall we move to the information that was
7 passed on to you in those circumstances?
8 It is that Henri Paul during that meeting had
9 a meeting with a member of the French intelligence
10 service, DGSE. That is what you were told?
11 A. That is correct.
12 Q. What else were you told about the relationship between
13 Henri Paul and that French intelligence agency?
14 A. That, as best I remember it and you have the benefit of
15 having my more recent contemporaneous statement there to
16 British investigators, whilst this was not an unusual
17 relationship for French intelligence to have with
18 somebody as Henri Paul, head of security at a major
19 international hotel in Paris where diplomats and
20 businessmen and others came regularly as a source of
21 information, it was a relationship that was also based
22 upon pay for information and that that evening they
23 discussed various things, not including Diana in
24 particular, although she was at the hotel and that some
25 money was transferred to Henri Paul, the bulk of which,

170

1 I gather, was the money that was found on him the night
2 of the accident, in which she was dead, which I think
3 was a little over $2,000/2,200 or 2,300 then.
4 I remember that at the time I was doing it it was
5 probably £1,500/1,600, today probably 1,100 or
6 a thousand but that had happened on that night. It was
7 not a meeting about Diana.
8 Q. Teasing out then what you were told about Henri Paul:
9 you were told he was able to obtain details of
10 high-ranking important visitors to the Ritz Hotel and
11 pass on that information; is that the nature of the
12 relationship?
13 A. Yes, as I gather it.
14 Q. And that he was thus a paid informant and no more. That
15 is what you were told?
16 A. Right -- I hesitate -- the reason I say "right" with
17 what sounds like a question mark, I am sorry, I hesitate
18 on the word "informant". He was paid for, right,
19 services and I think of "informant" as somebody doing
20 this on a regular basis. I am not quite sure how steady
21 this was.
22 Q. Mr Posner, what I will do is read you the relevant
23 section from the statement that I have in front of me
24 which was signed, as I say, in 2005. And tell me if
25 there is anything you would like to change or qualify.

171

1 It is this:
2 "He was a paid informant and no more. There is
3 apparently a file on him in this role with the French
4 authorities confirming he had a standard informant/pay
5 relationship with this agency. I have not seen this
6 file. Although I am certain it was the DGSE with which
7 he had this relationship, I was also told from the same
8 source that Henri Paul had relations with the DST (...)
9 and the Renseignments Generaux. I understand these were
10 less formal. I know the difference between the three
11 French intelligence agencies I mention in this article
12 and that the DGSE is the equivalent to and performs
13 the same function as the CIA in the USA and MI6 in
14 the United Kingdom."
15 Is that still a fair summary of what your source
16 told you?
17 A. Absolutely correct. Since 2000, I have been trying to
18 write an article for the French authorities to release
19 that very file, the first one that you talked about,
20 with the DGSE. For the benefit of the public, that
21 should be in the public domain.
22 Q. We have heard from others, and there is no controversy
23 about it, that Henri Paul did have dealings with
24 the DST. But we have not heard from anyone else that he
25 had dealings with the DGSE. How confident are you first

172

1 that you have recorded what the source told you
2 accurately, and second, your confidence in the accuracy
3 of the source's information?
4 A. I will answer those if I can in reverse order. I am
5 absolutely confident -- I am putting my professional
6 reputation on the line. This is my career, in relying
7 upon my source and I do in fact do so.
8 Secondly, the DGSE aspect of this relationship was
9 quite important as far as I was concerned because it was
10 the first time then, and still years later stands as
11 the only time he, Henri Paul, was tied to what I call
12 French foreign intelligence.
13 You would expect internal French security, our
14 equivalent in the States, the FBI, or MI5 in the UK, to
15 be interested in what the Chief of Security at the Ritz
16 could do. I found it far more intriguing that his most
17 formal relationship in fact might be with the equivalent
18 of the CIA or MI6 because of the foreign visitors,
19 the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the members of foreign
20 governments that passed through the Ritz. That, I am
21 quite clear that I took correctly in taking those notes.
22 Q. Now, are we right to infer that in giving you
23 the explanation of a suggested relationship between
24 Henri Paul and the DGSE, there was no suggestion from
25 your source of a relationship with US intelligence or

173

1 British intelligence?
2 A. Absolutely none and not because it was omitted. I asked
3 and all I was told at the time -- this is the first time
4 I have been asked this question -- is he/she did not
5 believe one existed on either, but that was not said
6 with the certainty that said 'you can rely on this'.
7 But no, no connection at all was discussed.
8 Q. And then you go on to say this, and you have touched on
9 it already:
10 "Although I was not told what this meeting was about
11 that day I was told what it was not about. It had
12 nothing to do with Diana, Princess of Wales. I was told
13 the subject did come up but only in general conversation
14 and that it was pure coincidence that this meeting took
15 place on the same day as the crash occurred."
16 Again, you are confident that that is what you were
17 told by your source?
18 A. No question and if I may say so, although this is, as
19 I said before, coming on nearly a decade, there are
20 certain events that stand out in your recollection.
21 You do not meet every day on matters as important as
22 the death of the Princess of Wales with an active
23 US intelligence source talking about details that are
24 not known to the public in an investigation that you are
25 doing for publication of an article.

174

1 One of the -- the actual setting in which this was
2 said was one in which -- and again I have not said this
3 before because we did not ask for this colour in
4 the previous statement -- in which this source was
5 essentially saying to me: can you believe it? This is
6 Murphy's law? Can you believe that in a simple car
7 wreck that, by all things, this driver happened to be
8 meeting with a French intelligence handler, his French
9 intelligence handler, on the night of the crash? This
10 will feed the conspiracy theorists.
11 I left with the same feeling, that it was
12 unfortunate in some ways to have to report it --
13 although it is in fact part of the historical record --
14 realising from my own perspective that I thought this
15 could be fodder for those who wanted to make more of it
16 than in fact it deserves.
17 Although it is one of those incredible twists of
18 fate or coincidence, I do not give it any more credence
19 than that. Nor did the source who was describing it to
20 me give it any more credence than that.
21 Q. There is another piece of information that you record
22 the source as giving you, do you remember that?
23 A. This particular source?
24 Q. Again, shall I read it to you?
25 A. Please.

175

1 Q. "The source from the NSA also told me ... that a call
2 was made from the British Home Secretary's office to
3 the room where the autopsy was being performed on Diana,
4 Princess of Wales. That call supposedly interrupted
5 the autopsy, and ordered the omission of any reference
6 to pregnancy in the final report. I do not know why or
7 how this source was in possession of this information
8 and I do not know which specific department or person in
9 the Home Office it is alleged that this call came from.
10 The Press Office at the British Embassy in Washington
11 dismissed out of hand any suggestion that such a call
12 happened."
13 You remember that, do you?
14 A. I do indeed.
15 Q. Seeing from the way in which you put it in statement,
16 it would seem that that was something the source
17 volunteered to you without giving you any colour at all
18 about how he or she had obtained that information?
19 A. That is absolutely correct. As a matter of fact, you
20 are very astute at picking up the difference in my
21 language when I talk about some of the caveats built
22 into that statement. That information came unsolicited,
23 it was given at the end of -- what I remember is it
24 being given at the end of the interview and I am
25 convinced, based upon my faith in this source, that that

176

1 is what they were told.
2 I do not have the same sense that they were able to
3 confirm that in the way they were able to confirm
4 the meeting that Henri Paul had with his French
5 intelligence handlers. That source believes this to be
6 right but I pass it along just as that, what he
7 reported. I cannot confirm that beyond that statement.
8 Q. Mr Posner, we have heard a great deal of evidence about
9 the treatment of the Princess's body after her death,
10 both in France and in England. I shall simply leave
11 that and move on.
12 In your statement, you say, and again I quote:
13 "I am willing to contact the source to see if he/she
14 is willing to speak with Metropolitan Police officers
15 from New Scotland Yard."
16 Did you in fact do that?
17 A. I did in fact do it and I was unsuccessful and
18 I informed Metropolitan Police that I was unsuccessful
19 in being able to get that source to agree to talk to
20 them.
21 Q. Are you prepared to name the source for our benefit this
22 afternoon?
23 A. Unfortunately, no. I apologise.
24 Q. Now, you mentioned some moments ago a second source who
25 you described in rather more general terms as "an active

177

1 American law enforcement officer". Are you able to tell
2 us for which organisation that officer worked or, if you
3 are not sure of the organisation, that you believed that
4 officer to work?
5 A. I know the organisation but I am not willing to provide
6 any more information than I did in the original
7 statement of 2005.
8 Q. All you say, rather enigmatically, in your statement is:
9 "In my article I mention a second source, an
10 American law enforcement official ... which had
11 previously worked criminal investigations with French
12 police authorities. As a result of his relationships
13 maintained with some of the French officers, he was able
14 to confirm, independently, some of the information
15 provided to me by the NSA source."
16 Okay?
17 A. That is correct. The first source is clearly the key
18 source. No question. I get some confirmation from
19 the second source.
20 One of the things you are always worried about as
21 a journalist, and the journalists covering this will
22 understand it, is that you are being set up as
23 a reporter and that the two people working in the same
24 general part of the Government that have decided to come
25 to you separately, one telling you a story and the other

178

1 confirming it, so that you are then convinced that you
2 are right. But in this case, I was familiar with both
3 of these individuals and I believed this confirmation
4 was accurate.
5 Q. In the quotation that I read to you a moment ago, you
6 referred to French officers, having earlier referred to
7 French police authorities. Does it follow that
8 the information that this source was passing to you he
9 represented came from French police officers?
10 A. I do not know if I was using the language loosely in
11 that statement. I apologise. I am not sure if they are
12 one and the same or not. I do not know what I meant, if
13 I meant the same or not. I do not remember from
14 the interview.
15 Q. Do you know, from what the second source told you,
16 whether from where that source was getting his or her
17 information?
18 A. I do not.
19 Q. You say that that source confirmed some of
20 the information provided to you by the NSA source.
21 Which bits?
22 A. The part that was confirmed as far as I remember was
23 the existence of a relationship between Henri Paul and
24 several aspects of French security/law
25 enforcement/intelligence; not relating to the meeting

179

1 itself.
2 Q. I see. It was not even as specific as giving detail of
3 which of the intelligence agencies he had a relationship
4 with?
5 A. I believe that is correct. It may have been quite
6 generic but I do not know without going back and looking
7 at notes.
8 Q. Just one last topic: in your article and also in your
9 statement, you describe being provided with an extract
10 from a tape-recording of a telephone call between Lucia
11 Flecha de Lima who was then the wife of the Brazilian
12 Ambassador to the United States and
13 the Princess of Wales. Do you remember that?
14 A. Absolutely.
15 Q. And you describe the conversation as talking about
16 I think it was hairstyles. Is that right?
17 A. It was. It was a short conversation, definitely less
18 than a minute and from what I remember, it was very
19 innocuous; something about hairstyles/fashion, but
20 hairstyles is what I remember.
21 Q. In your article, you put it this way but I would like
22 you to confirm that this is correct:
23 "This spring in Washington I listened to an
24 innocuous portion of an undated conversation between
25 Diana and de Lima. The recording was made available by

180

1 an active US intelligence asset, who says it was one of
2 several collected by the National Security Agency.
3 The NSA never directly targeted Diana, but picked up her
4 conversations as an incidental part of a separate
5 monitoring operation."
6 And that is what you were led to believe, is it, by
7 the person who provided you with that snippet of
8 telephone call?
9 A. That is correct.
10 MR BURNETT: Thank you very much. Those are my questions.
11 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Mansfield?
12 Questions from MR MANSFIELD
13 MR MANSFIELD: My name is Michael Mansfield. I represent
14 Mohamed Al Fayed. I have very few questions. May
15 I preface the questions so you know why I am asking it:
16 In relation to the DGSE in France, the equivalent of the
17 CIA and MI6, that organisation has categorically denied
18 so far having any file on Henri Paul or having any
19 contact with him, do you follow? That is why I want to
20 ask you the questions.
21 The first question is this: are there any
22 circumstances in which you might be prepared to divulge
23 the identity of either of the two people who you used as
24 informants or contacts?
25 A. No. And the reason I say no -- and I say sorry but this

181

1 is this is my career. What I mean by that is I am not
2 a dilettante or somebody with hundreds or millions of
3 personal wealth who can say I am just writing
4 occasionally because I am interested in doing it. My
5 word is my bond and the reason why book after book and
6 article after article I am able to get access to
7 individuals who are like the ones I spoke to on this
8 and, like on my last book about the Saudis that has
9 infuriated the Saudis, people that are helpful, I cannot
10 disclose these; once I do, my career is finished.
11 But if I may say as an overall to your introductory
12 comment, that the DGSE has adamantly denied having
13 a file on Henri Paul or connections with Henri Paul,
14 that does not surprise me.
15 In my dealings with intelligence agencies, primarily
16 here in the United States, they will often obfuscate,
17 lie, hold back information, refuse to release it until
18 they are absolutely forced to years or decades down
19 the road. They are their own worst enemies in providing
20 information to the public. They create the fodder and
21 the groundwork for conspiracy theories because they hold
22 on to information and people believe they have something
23 to hold on to because they have a secret or they are
24 lying. I called on the DGSE before and I call on them
25 again today in this open forum to release the files they

182

1 have on their relationship with Henri Paul. It will
2 eventually come out. It is better to get it out now
3 than to continue to be dishonest about it.
4 Q. The reason I ask it now is there is a procedure here for
5 ensuring complete confidence about the name of a source.
6 The jury here have just seen a number of witnesses who
7 are anonymous. Nobody knows, except the learned Coroner
8 who is like the judge, if I can put it that way, and
9 obviously those who represent those witnesses but other
10 than that, the jury don't know, I do not know,
11 the public doesn't know.
12 So it is a very tightly-controlled situation. Now,
13 do you think the two people in the interests of
14 long-term truth might be prepared to provide their
15 details in that manner, namely only to the Coroner in
16 the first place?
17 A. I understand your question and, without knowing
18 the answer to that, I am willing to say here that I will
19 find out. I will contact these individuals. It may
20 take a little bit of time because I do not just call in
21 an office. Obviously they are people who would like me
22 to make this call ten minutes afterwards so they know
23 who I am calling and I am not saying you and I will find
24 out, their concern is clearly their job. If they feel
25 comfortable with allowing me to come back and provide

183

1 this information to this inquest, I will be happy to do
2 so.
3 Q. It is obviously subject to the learned Coroner but we
4 are running out of time a little. Is it something that
5 you might be able to do within seven days or is that
6 impossible?
7 A. No. I will this coming weekend reach out and start this
8 process of finding out.
9 Q. Thank you.
10 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: It is not so much a question of
11 knowing their names. We would also want to hear what
12 information they can give us and whether they can
13 confirm what you have said. Do you understand?
14 A. I do indeed and all I can say is: the best I can do is
15 to reach out and it is their decision.
16 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Thank you.
17 MR MANSFIELD: In the light of that, I only have two further
18 questions and it may be something I misheard that you
19 said minutes ago.
20 Did the contact, particularly the intelligence
21 contact, tell you that his French sources knew that
22 Diana was at the Ritz?
23 A. I may have said that a moment ago, because it sounds
24 like something I did just say. I will defer to more
25 contemporaneous documents, either the article or

184

1 the statement I made to British investigators.
2 What I am saying today is yet another year or two
3 further away from the event. So, whatever
4 the contemporaneous documents I say or what I said in
5 the affidavit that is submitted is what I rely on.
6 Q. I understand that. Can I just ask you about
7 contemporaneous documents?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Did the two -- can I call them informants for you --
10 A. Right.
11 Q. Did either of those two, when you saw them in 1999, have
12 with them any kind of record that they were reading from
13 in order to inform you?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Did you make any record when you were with them of what
16 they were telling you?
17 A. No. One of the difficulties of this process is that
18 notes are, as far as these sources -- intelligence
19 sources understand that notes are discoverable, that in
20 a litigation, a lawsuit, a libel suit, that my research
21 materials are subject to being given over to opposing
22 counsel. In there, if I have notes about that
23 conversation, it may lead to that source. This is truly
24 something that you need to listen to, remember, go out
25 the room and immediately start typing yourself for what

185

1 you are going to use but there were no notes taken.
2 Q. All right. One more question. Did the two informants
3 tell you that that their French contacts in intelligence
4 had said that Diana and Dodi were discussed?
5 A. Remember, and if I am contradicted on this by my own
6 article, I shall have to hang my head in shame but
7 I remember now that they had in fact discussed that
8 Diana was there because it was known, it was sort of
9 like what is going on at the -- in essence, if I may
10 paraphrase or give you, without word-for-word but
11 a nine-year recollection, it was like what is going on
12 now? It is absolutely crazy because Diana and --
13 the Princess of Wales and Dodi are at the hotel, you
14 cannot believe how crazed it is. That type of thing.
15 It was a personal discussion, the type of thing you
16 would have with a friend or a business colleague that
17 you had a relationship with. If you met them to discuss
18 something else, and you said, what is happening, and you
19 said, by the way, at my building, Beckham has just taken
20 the upper floor and the place is a madhouse.
21 Q. Because of course, you will be familiar that the way
22 that intelligence is gathered is often in an informal
23 way without the informant recognising that they are
24 giving information?
25 A. That is right.

186

1 Q. And I am not asking you to hang your head in shame but
2 the article that you had published does say that Diana
3 and Dodi were discussed. I am quoting from your
4 article.
5 A. Okay.
6 Q. So would that be a more accurate recollection?
7 A. Yes, absolutely. That would fit with what I am
8 remembering. All right.
9 Q. Last question altogether, I do not think you have
10 explained but could you just explain what the NSA is;
11 I am sorry to ask you that question.
12 A. Yes, despite 20 years in the business, I am still
13 struggling to come up with the adequate succinct
14 description of what the NSA does but the National
15 Security Agency is one of the intelligence branches that
16 makes the CIA look as though it is a public branch.
17 It is one of the more secretive aspects of
18 US Government. It is involved in electronic and cyber
19 security, it has satellites that pick up many of the
20 telephone and cellphone conversations worldwide based
21 upon a list of buzzwords so that, if individuals start
22 to talk about terror or bombing or packages or items
23 like this, those satellites can pick up those
24 conversations. They are required by US law under
25 the Federal Surveillance Act, Foreign Surveillance Act,

187

1 not to have surveillance on American citizens nor on
2 American citizens with international telephone
3 conversations but they can in fact collect information
4 on foreign citizens whether abroad, in the United States
5 or having conversations to individuals in the US.
6 MR MANSFIELD: Thank you. Comprehensive, understood.
7 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Keen?
8 MR KEEN: No questions, sir.
9 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Croxford?
10 MR CROXFORD: Oh no, sir. Thank you.
11 LORD JUSTICE SCOTT BAKER: Mr Horwell?
12 Questions from MR HORWELL
13 MR HORWELL: Mr Posner, my name is Richard Horwell and
14 I appear on behalf of the Commissioner of Metropolitan
15 Police.
16 We obviously have an annoying tendency of wanting to
17 test evidence wherever possible and at the moment, of
18 course, we have no names of these sources and you have
19 already been asked and you are not prepared to name
20 them.
21 I am principally concerned with the first of the
22 sources that you have mentioned, the one that gave you
23 the information in detail. Was he paid for this
24 information?
25 A. You mean paid by whom?

188

1 Q. By you.
2 A. Oh no, heavens forbid. I have never ever, I am proud to
3 say, paid for a source or a bit of information in my
4 27 years of journalism. I have said no many times to
5 people who have asked, I never pay for sources.
6 Q. Are you prepared to say where this meeting took place
7 and when?
8 A. No -- when? Yes, it would have been -- where, no.
9 Because it isolates him too much but when, yes.
10 The reason I remember when vaguely is because my wife's
11 birthday -- at that time her 48th -- is on March 10th
12 and we were working a meeting -- I was trying to work
13 a meeting out to hear a snippet of this conversation and
14 also about the information for the Diana, what had
15 happened with Henri Paul. So, it was before or after
16 her birthday, it was March or April of 1999.
17 Q. This source, you say, gave you information about
18 Henri Paul and this same source also told you that there
19 was a telephone call from the British Home Secretary's
20 office to the room where the autopsy was being performed
21 on Diana and that the call interrupted the autopsy and
22 ordered the omission of any reference to pregnancy in
23 the final report. The same source provided you with
24 that information.
25 A. That is correct.

189

1 Q. Were you yourself concerned at the accuracy of that
2 information?
3 A. Well, if I had been concerned about the accuracy of
4 the information, I would not have published it. My --
5 I get essentially a veto power as they have on the UN
6