Morgan - Diana Inquest: Who Killed Princess Diana?

Secrecy of information is integral to operations conducted by MI6.

John Sawers, MI6 Chief, 2010, UK: 28 Oct 10 Public Speech:Jury Didnt Hear:

Secrecy is not a dirty word. Secrecy is not there as a cover-up. Secrecy plays a crucial part in keeping Britain safe and secure.

Richard Dearlove, MI6 Director of Operations, 1994 to 1999, UK: 20 Feb 08: 26.23:
Burnett: Q. Is there a general approach to knowledge within the service that people only know what they need to know?
A. Well, the principle of need to know is applied throughout the organisation. Therefore your knowledge is compartmentalised in terms of the activity for which you are responsible, but of course the further up the service you go, the more you need to know what everyone else is doing.

Miss X, MI6 Administrator, UK: 26 Feb 08: 13.18:
Burnett: Q. Is that because even though everyone in MI6 has developed vetting and is thus, one hopes, trustworthy, information is only accessible if you need to know it?
A. Absolutely. We operate on a terribly important need to know basis. So if I am in one area and somebody else is in another, even socially or anything else, we just dont discuss each others work.
Coroner: The more people who know the information, the greater the risk there is
A. Absolutely.
Q. That there might just be an inadvertent slip of some sort?
A. Absolutely.
Coroner: And also the risks of perhaps putting two and two together from different places?
A. Yes, precisely, sir.

Comment: MI6 witnesses emphasised the importance of secrecy and restricting information on a need to know basis:

• Dearlove: the principle of need to know is applied throughout the organisation
• Miss X: we operate on a terribly important need to know basis we just dont discuss each others work.

Both Dearlove and X are talking about secrecy within MI6 itself throughout the organisation; each others work.

I suggest that if MI6 apply such secrecy with their colleagues, then it seems likely they would be even less open in dealing with people outside of the MI6 organisation.

This evidence indicates that if MI6 had any involvement in the Paris crash, then those outside of the organisation particularly the general public would not be included amongst those who needed to know.

In other words, if MI6 assassinated Princess Diana, they are hardly going to admit it particularly given their culture of secrecy.

This evidence also shows that if MI6 carried this out, then each person involved would have only known what they needed to know.

This would help explain why a person like Henri Paul would carry out his role, even though it led to his death the point being that he would not have known he was going to die. He may not have believed there was any risk at all to the Mercedes occupants, if he had been only given need to know information.

It may be that other players Claude Roulet particularly had no idea that their actions would assist in bringing about the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed.

MI6 carry out operations that they can later deny involvement in.

Richard Tomlinson, Ex-MI6 Officer: 13 Feb 08: 90.2:
Mansfield: Q. Now, was [deniability] a concept that was discussed inside MI6?
A. Frequently, yes, making an operation deniable was always a consideration so that, if things went wrong, you could plausibly demonstrate that the British Government had nothing to do with it.
Q. So it is not just a question of operating under cover, perhaps with a false cover; it is also operating in a way that nobody knows this is what you are doing and then, if it happens, denying that you have done it. That is what it comes to, doesnt it?
A. Yes.

Richard Dearlove, MI6 Director of Operations, 1994 to 1999, UK: 20 Feb 08: 116.6:
Mansfield: Q. Those concepts, deniability, they are not culled out of the blue, are they, deniability?
A. Deniability of an operation carried out by SIS is a common concept which Tomlinson would have learned about on his training.
Q. What that involves and he has given evidence about this last week is this not right is that the SIS themselves, as it were, dont dirty their own hands with tasks abroad. They employ an increment, do they not?
A. Can I cut to the quick, Mr Mansfield? I am not going to speculate on SISs various operational capabilities. They are many and they are different and the court does not need to know about them. What the court does need to know is that all of these capabilities, every single one of them, were under my personal control as the chief of operations and subject to class 7 authorisations under the Act. So there are not any little offshore liars here that somehow do not fit into this pattern; they do not exist. Anything that is referred to, whether you have heard of it before or whether you have not heard of it before, whether it has a strange name or whether it has not got a strange name, was under the control of the director of operations. Lets be absolutely crystal clear about that and I think it is important that the jury understands that fact.
Q. Now, just going back to the question of deniability, the concept
A. Some of these capabilities are, of course, deniable, but they are still under legal control. They still come under the Intelligence Services Act.
.Q. I am asking the question, starting in the tunnel, as to who was capable of causing a crash in the tunnel and then denying they had anything to do with it, which is why I am wanting to ask you about deniability. I want to ask this question, not at the official level but at any level; deniability means you can get in and out and deny what has happened, effectively?
A. But deniability is a basic concept of SIS activity
Q. Yes.
A. but under operational control and authorisation. It is just like secrecy, clandestinity. I do not think I can explain it any more than that.

At 162.13: Keen: Q. Tomlinson had disclosed that the document existed., there is the issue of deniability. Sometimes things are not capable of denial.
A. Deniability is not practised inside SIS or in SIS in relation to the Government, never, ever. That is a fundamental point of integrity. It is only practised in relation to its operations outside the Governmental context.

At 167.8: Mansfield: Q. Do you remember you gave an answer just before the break: Deniability is not practised inside SIS or in SIS in relation to the Government, never, ever. It is only practised in relation to its operations outside the Governmental context. What that means is you will deny it to everybody save members of your own service and the Government. Is that right?
A. No, that is not true.

Mr H, MI6 Direct Boss of Mr A, Balkans: 28 Feb 08: 133.16:
Mansfield: Q. Is there a policy of deniability within the department?
A. I think you already know that deniability is one of the techniques that we have as a service.
Q. Within the department?
Coroner: That is not very clearly put, Mr Mansfield. Sir Richard dealt with this. I mentioned the point yesterday. I think his evidence was to the effect that deniability to the world outside was one thing, but deniability inside was totally different and not acceptable.
Q. Quite. And that is why You were aware of that, were you?
A. Absolutely.

Mr 6, MI6 Officer. British Embassy, Paris: 29 Feb 08: 82.25:
Mansfield: Q. Was it part, this letter, of the culture of deniability?
A. I think deniability and I know the various senses in which it has been bandied around during the process here my understanding, what I mean when I talk about deniability, is our ability to act in a way in which other states will not know that we are doing it, but I do not accept that that means deniability in the context of internally, ie that you can deny things to one another or indeed that we deny things within Whitehall. So, the whole process of submissions is that this operation might be deniable, ie, we might want it to appear that we had not done it over here, but that is not the same as saying it would be invisible or deniable within Government. Within the UK Government, it would be seen and it would be recognised. So that is the split. It is an operational term of art, if you like, rather than a state of affairs.