Top lawyer says Princess Diana 'was killed after plan to frighten her went wrong'

[David Guyatt]

Well, it seems the cat is now well and truly out of the bag - Diana was assassinated (even if not intentionally if Mansfield is to be believed).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnew...wrong.html

Princess Diana 'was killed after plan to frighten her went wrong'

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 10:00 AM on 12th March 2010

Princess Diana died after attempts to frighten her into dumping Dodi al Fayed and ending her anti-establishment activities went horribly wrong, a leading lawyer has claimed.

Michael Mansfield claimed he was sure Diana's 'killers' had no intention of ending her life in a Paris tunnel in August 1997 and simply wanted to scare her.

But he claimed the operation to torpedo her relationship with Dodi, and silence her planned criticism of the British government over foreign arms sales, backfired spectacularly.


Princess Diana arriving at the Ritz Hotel in Paris the evening before she died: Lawyer Michael Mansfield believes there was a plan to frighten her which went horribly wrong
Mr Mansfield, who represented Dodi's father Mohamed al Fayed at the 2007 inquest into Diana's death, said: 'I don't believe anyone wanted to see her dead.

'I think there was a plan to sabotage the relationship and alter her life, to try to stop her activities.


Michael Mansfield: 'I don't believe anyone wanted to see her dead'
'But this plan went very badly and ended with her death.'

The radical QC, whose long list of famous cases has included the Bloody Sunday inquiry and the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest, has previously claimed Diana's road crash death was no accident.

He outlined his views in memoirs published last year on his colourful 40-year career.

His latest comments on the tragedy were made during a trip to Barcelona.

A jury concluded Diana had been unlawfully killed in April 2008 after a six-month inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice. It blamed the grossly negligent driving of her chauffeur Henri Paul and chasing paparazzi photographers.

Mohamed al Fayed, who told the inquest Diana was murdered in a conspiracy involving Tony Blair, MI5, MI6 and the British ambassador to France, has always refused to accept the verdict.

In an interview with Catalan daily El Periodico published today, Mr Mansfield said British authorities opposed several aspects of Diana's private and public life.

He said: 'I believe the relationship between Princess Diana and Dodi al Fayed displeased the authorities.


Crash: In April 2008, a jury concluded Diana had been unlawfully killed after a six-month inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice

Tragedy: The jury blamed her death on the grossly negligent driving of her chauffeur Henri Paul (right) and chasing paparazzi photographers. (Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones also pictured)
'In spite of all the work Mohamed al Fayed did for children and hospitals, he was persona non grata in Britain.

'As far as Diana was concerned, she had given interviews attacking the Royal Family for the way they treated her, but I think what most annoyed the authorities was that Diana became very actively involved in the campaign against land mines.

'The UK arms sales industry is huge, it's one of the biggest three in the world.

'The investigation into Diana's death showed she was preparing to denounce British complicity in the sale of weapons to countries that do not respect human rights.'

Mr Mansfield travelled to Barcelona as a member of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, a citizens' initiative launched last year in Brussels which aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The tribunal held its first session in Barcelona earlier this month.


Threat: Mansfield claims there was an operation to frighten Diana out of a relationship with Dodi Fayed after their holiday in the French Riviera in 1997
Mr Mansfield, who announced last year he was giving up court work after 42 years for a break, has long been a controversial figure.

Critics dubbed him a champagne socialist and Michael 'Moneybags' Mansfield because of the money he earned.

Much of his reputed £700,000-a-year earnings at the height of his career came from legally aided causes celebres.

He was paid £1,900 a day representing families at the Bloody Sunday inquiry, which has cost the taxpayer some £200million.

The monthly bill for his legal team during the Diana case, which comprised nearly 40 lawyers around the world as well as inquiry agents, is said to have reached £1.5million.

In memoirs published last year he said: 'In the case of Diana and Dodi, I have always believed that whatever had caused the crash, it was not an accident.

'As it transpired, that belief was shared by the jury at the inquest.'

He added: 'Diana's fears for her safety and her preoccupation with surveillance were thoroughly canvassed, and in my view were found to be entirely justified.

'Unfortunately her predictions came to pass.'

[Magda Hassan]

Interesting. Al Fayed will be pleased.

[Peter Lemkin]

Interesting. Al Fayed will be pleased.

...and some Royals and some MI5 or 6-ers will be passing out cyanide capsules, just in case....

[Jan Klimkowski]

Princess Diana died after attempts to frighten her into dumping Dodi al Fayed and ending her anti-establishment activities went horribly wrong, a leading lawyer has claimed.

Michael Mansfield claimed he was sure Diana's 'killers' had no intention of ending her life in a Paris tunnel in August 1997 and simply wanted to scare her.

For me, this smells of either red herring or limited hangout.

What is Mansfield claiming? That there was an intelligence plot to have paparazzi pursue Diana aggressively through Paris and she would be so in fear of her life that she would stop spilling the beans about the Royal Family and abandon her landmine campaign?

It makes no sense to me.

Henri Paul was a British intelligence asset, but what was his role in this plot? To turn round to Diana and say: "Shut it or you die?"

How could a high-speed paparazzi chase though Paris achieve anything other than exacerbating Diana's extant love/hate relationship with those very paparazzi whom she alternately courted and fled from during her entire life?

[Peter Lemkin]

They did scare her, one must admit - they scared her to death! I'd second the limited-hangout choice (b). However, the landmine rationale does ring true and is the 'hangout' part.

[Bernice Moore]

Pioneering lawyer Mark Lane defends Keith Allen's controversial Princess Diana documentary 'Unlawful Killing' - New York Daily News

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-06-...d-al-fayed

[Magda Hassan]

[Peter Lemkin]

VERY interesting!.....and no surprise to me.

[Charles Drago]

Self-correcting systems by definition evolve.

It now appears that the "straw man" operation has evolved a strain with significantly enhanced resistance to exposure. It now protects itself by breaking off an ostensibly benign mutation to emerge and warn the host entity that malignant "straw man" strains are at work.

Once the benign mutation is trusted, it draws the host away from its malignant siblings, which in turn are left to dine in peace.

My oh my, doesn't the "revelation" of a Palestinian-related motive for Diana's murder -- a plot device I had imagined years ago for my Tear the Lace script -- loom as just the sort of twist that is indispensable to the success of all great stories?

(And my oh my oh my, aren't these sorts of operations constructed as dramas?)

On a related note, I'd ask Mr. al Fayed as well as all serious Diana investigators to look very deeply into the Mark Zaid/al Fayed relationship.

Mr. al Fayed continues to be victimized in an operation that, like the JFK murder, never will come to an end.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Ah - Oswald LeWinter. I believe Charles and I deconstructed him some time ago here on DPF.....

Not Allan Francovich's most reliable source. :mexican: