British
intelligence officers are facing unprecedented public scrutiny as they take the stand at the inquest into Princess
Diana’s death to deny claims that the
security services killed her on the royal family’s orders.
Their former boss has already given a fascinating glimpse into the murky world of espionage-but this is not all about glamorous 007 figures. Theirs is a more mundane world of bureaucratic checks and balances.
With his deadly array of guns and gadgets, James Bond has a Licence to kill in his constant battle to thwart villains plotting world domination. In reality, the world’s most famous spy would need a Class Seven authorisation agreed by his line managers and personally signed by the Foreign Secretary.
Britain’s former spy chief Richard Dearlove gingerly lifted the lid on this secret world when giving evidence to the inquest into the 1997 deaths of Diana and her lover Dodi Al Fayed in a Paris car crash.
His testimony made the security services sound more like a firm of accountants than a bunch of 007s, The Daily Telegraph concluded. Now it is the turn of 10 serving and former
intelligence officers to appear in court-but their identities will be protected and they will be just referred to as numbers or letters.
The court will be cleared of the media and public on Tuesday when they start to give evidence, which will be piped by audio link to an annex.In an unprecedented move by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) they are going public to deny allegations from Dodi’s father, luxury storeowner Mohamed Al Fayed, that the security services killed the couple on orders from Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband and Diana’s former father-in-law.
Dearlove dismissed Al Fayed’s allegations as utterly ridiculous and went into a detailed description of the bureaucratic hoops a real life James Bond would face. When the paperwork was completed-and this would apply to an initiative overseas as much as to one developed within head office-it would be signed off by, let’s say, the senior regional official, he said.