Thursday, March 08, 2007

[diana] the chronology collated

For nine hours now, on the International Day of Women, I've been silent, as I've been collating all the details I have on the Diana case into some semblance of order. It's my little gift to her memory.

The only way I can get any order into this thing is to present each point in the story with all the available evidence relating to that point - eyewitness accounts, official versions and statistics and then trust to the reader to make some sense of it. It's a long read but I hope it presents the facts accurately:

Early indication

From the mid 1990's, Diana released a series of audio, videotapes and letters voicing her fears that she would be killed in a car crash made to look like an accident. In one letter, Diana stated, "My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry”.

July, 1997

The Chicago Tribune on July 15, 1997 wrote: The 36-year-old princess was pictured late Monday leaning over a yacht and reportedly telling the reporters: "You are going to get a big surprise, you'll see. You are going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do."

Robert Jobson, London Evening Standard, June 25, 2004 wrote: "Author Andrew Morton, in his new book, Diana: In Pursuit Of Love, alleges British or US intelligence had forced Diana to change her plans to stay with American billionaire Teddy Forstmann in the summer of 1997, saying it was too dangerous to take her sons there. The block on her travel plans meant that instead, she took a summer break with Mohamed Fayed."

The Private Secretary's leave and Tony Blair's plane

On the night of the 30th/31st, Sir Robin Janvrin was based in the equerries' room, where he also fielded incoming messages. He was on duty because his superior — the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes, had taken a weekend's leave.

A middle-aged English wireless operator at the embassy in Paris came on duty in the early evening of August 30, expecting his night shift to be routine, sending encrypted phone calls and messages from the embassy via UK listening stations to Downing Street, the heads of Whitehall departments and, if necessary, senior aides of the Royal Family.

Just before midnight, as Diana was preparing to leave the Ritz Hotel with Dodi two well-spoken men burst through the door of the communications room. Described as "public school", they ordered this operative to leave his post and not to return until told. He told a colleague: "It was that bastard Fellowes. He turfed me out of my own office."

The collation continues here.

4 comments:

  1. Not to beat a dead horse (no pun intended)

    But could you link to the 'facts' you print on this?

    (she will die in a car crash, her husband is planning, etc.)

    Or is this your conjecture?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lord Nazh, there is zero conjecture in this - it's all on the record and if I can find it, you can too.

    All I've done is saved people the job. However, on the point you ask about, here are three sources to be going on with:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/20/48hours/main612794.shtml

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/15/ndiana115.xml

    http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20061215/ai_n16904066

    CityUnslicker - you may well say 'sigh', which I do too after that marathon but I needed to know what actually did go down, shorn of all the obfuscation.

    Now I'm pretty certain what happened except for one thing - who actually ordered it. That's still not certain.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks James, I thought maybe you had linked them in the story and it just wasn't showing up as a link for me :)

    ReplyDelete

Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.