Anonymous British Intelligence Officer Testifies at Diana Inquest

LONDON – A search of messages between MI6 headquarters and its Paris station during the summer of 1997 turned up no references to Princess Diana's travels in France with Dodi Fayed, an officer with the intelligence agency testified Tuesday at the inquest into their deaths.

The officer, identified only as Miss X, assisted British police in their investigation into the deaths of the princess and Fayed in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.

Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has claimed the two were murdered by the security services on the orders of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

The British inquest was delayed for years because of British and French police investigations, which concluded that the couple died in an auto accident, and that high speed and drinking by the driver were contributing factors.

In Tuesday's testimony, X said a search of 887 telegrams produced nothing relevant.

Asked whether any documents had been held back from investigators, she said: "I am absolutely certain that they saw each and every one."

The agent also testified that it was not unusual for documents to be destroyed in some circumstances. That relates to the assertion by former MI6 agent Richard Tomlinson that a proposal for an assassination made in 1992 or 1993 was destroyed, contrary to agency rules.

Former MI6 head Richard Dearlove testified last week that the proposal contemplating the assassination of a Balkan leader was "killed stone dead" at an early stage.

"If you were told, 'Look this is absolute rubbish, get rid of it,' that would not have been entirely unusual," X said.

Dearlove testified that MI6 did not assassinate anyone during his time as director of special operations and then as head of the agency.

Tomlinson has claimed that he saw a plan to kill the late Slobodan Milosevic, when he was President of Serbia, in a car accident — but now says he may have been wrong about the target and the method.

Mohamed Al Fayed has claimed that the plan reported by Tomlinson was the blueprint for killing his son and the princess.

Several MI6 agents — identified only by letters to protect their identity — are scheduled to testify this week at the inquest into the deaths of Diana and Fayed.