Cover Up

COVER UP

Damien Comerford

Copyright © 2014 Damien Comerford

All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Secrets Of The Alma Tunnel

2. A Poison Chalice

3. Crime On Capitol Hill

4. Fallen Arrow

5. Preparing For The Apocalypse

INTRODUCTION

Five years ago, I sat down to write a book about a series of stories that were enigmatic, compelling and mysterious as the day they first broke around the world. I’d come across them by accident or so it seemed to me at the time. Now I wonder whether they might have picked me rather than the other way around.

As an investigative journalist, I’d been involved in uncovering new information about other seminal events in history like the bombing of the Greenpeace protest ship, the Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour. I am proud of the fact that when I was the Executive Producer of a Primetime long format Current Affairs television show in New Zealand, we managed to track down and confront the French secret service agent who placed the bomb on the hull of the yacht, which killed photographer Fernando Pereira. He and the Greenpeace crew were preparing to embark on a peaceful, protest voyage to the French nuclear testing site in Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific. The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was an act of State sponsored terrorism by the French Government.

I was well placed, with all of the necessary skills and experience, to write a book about a series of Cover Ups. I knew how to recognise a great story, and more importantly an even greater cover-up, when it crossed my path.

Over the years I collected many great stories but five of them were standouts for me. All of these stories possessed a sense of injustice so strong, it was like a distress beacon perpetually sending its signal in the hope that some day, someone, might hear and do something. All of these stories life-changing events at the time they happened. Significant stories, missing one vital ingredient: the complete truth. They were stories that shared something very much in common. A disaster closely followed by a pathetically, inadequate official investigation. A seemingly diligent and competent group of people in authority who appeared to be following a line of inquiry that left no stone unturned, but in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Experts that had no real interest in turning over every clue, acting on statements from eyewitnesses and conducting the necessary forensic examinations. Their agenda was to completely disregard the evidence and, after an appropriate amount of time, reach a convenient conclusion that these were simple, easily explained accidents or incidents. In each case, the authorities did their best to make it appear that way but appearances can be deceiving and these were no accidents. Sadly, for the most part, their conclusions were supported by an apathetic media, which couldn’t be bothered wading through the detail and asking the right questions.

What is troubling for me, and should be for you, is that we all now live in an era of press handouts and spin doctoring. Investigative reporting in newspapers has almost disappeared. Newspaper proprietors are no longer willing to invest in the luxury of a dedicated team of journalists, with a mandate to do the necessary digging to hold Governments and authorities to account and expose wrongdoing. I don’t know why this has happened. It could be a reflection of the general decline in newspaper readership and revenue. It could be antipathy and ignorance. Whatever the reason it has left us all very vulnerable.

Newspapers like Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct tabloid rag, the British News of the World, did the cause of investigative journalism a great disservice when it orchestrated a tawdry scandal that involved the illegal interception of the private telephone conversations of high profile celebrities. It was lazy journalism that simply provided the high moral ground for critics to attack press freedom, while at the same time putting legitimate and appropriate investigative reporting under pressure. The public, quite rightly, took the view that the media couldn’t be trusted.

It’s been left to controversial organisations like Wikileaks and its charismatic Australian founder, Julian Assange, to fill the vacuum and give real meaning to the term freedom of information. The quantity and quality of leaked revelations, embarrassing to Governments and leaders all over the world, enabled Wikileaks to morph itself into a global news corporation and do the job that newspapers used to do by keeping the bastards honest. But information is power and powerful Governments like the Obama Administration were determined to choke the Wikileaks source of supply. The current United States’ Government attitude to whistleblowing has been a complete revelation and not in a good way. In 2008, the then Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, ran on a platform praising whistle-blowers as people of courage and patriotism. His campaign document described them as the watchdogs, alerting the public when Governments abuse their authority.

Contrast that attitude with how the Obama led U.S. Government very recently dealt to a lowly ranked American Army intelligence analyst called Bradley Manning who was facing the death penalty or 136 years in prison for leaking embarrassing Government information. One of Bradley Manning’s leaks was a video captured by the on board camera in one of the American Army’s Apache attack helicopters. The video and audio reveals the crew laughing as they slaughtered a group of innocent civilians in Iraq that included a Reuters’ cameraman and three small children. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for his crime. An official Army investigation concluded that the Apache helicopter crew had followed accepted rules of engagement. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions on guilt or innocence.

Another whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, who worked for the American National Security Agency, which is like the CIA, is now America’s most wanted man. One of his crimes was to tell his fellow American citizens that they were being spied on by his employer the United States Government even though they had committed no crime. Snowden, found refuge in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but he will be forever looking over his shoulder or waiting for that knock on the door. Even Julian Assange is a refugee, permanently holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London subject to arrest and deportation the minute he steps outside. It isn’t hard to figure out what is going on here. The authorities want whistle-blowers to become an endangered species. They want to deliver the maximum possible deterrence to anyone who might be contemplating following in Manning or Snowden’s footsteps. It’s a very sad development for anyone who values, freedom, democracy and public accountability.

So it is against this backdrop that I have conducted my own re-investigation of what I wouldn’t hesitate in calling five of the world’s biggest crimes. The British Paget Inquiry numbering 1000 pages on the investigation of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales was pretty much a non-event as far as Fleet Street was concerned. Most of the Press couldn’t be bothered reading that report from beginning to end nor could they be bothered critically examining its obvious deficiencies, contradictions and lack of logic. Instead the vast majority of British journalists were only too eager to perpetuate the myth that the Alma Tunnel crash was a simple traffic accident caused by a temporary Chauffeur who was a hopeless alcoholic and was drunk when he crashed the Mercedes into a concrete pylon. Had they read Paget properly, as I did, they would have very quickly realised there is simply no credible evidence to demonstrate that Henri Paul was legally over the blood alcohol limit for driving a car. It was far too easy and convenient for everyone to blame a dead man. If you take a close look at Paget, Henri Paul doesn’t need to defend himself. The total lack of evidence speaks volumes even if he never can.

In my view, the efforts by the authorities in the cases that I examined can be equated with trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and failing miserably. Instead of letting the facts speak for themselves, the investigating authorities tried to make the facts fit a pre-ordained scenario. The harder they tried the more absurd it became. But if you take away a simple accident as the primary cause then the investigation must move in a completely new and different direction, and that opens a whole new can of worms. For example the crash of the Arrow Air chartered jet in Gander Canada, which resulted in the deaths of 256 people, most of them American peacekeeping soldiers returning home from the Middle East. Despite all of the evidence and all of the eyewitness testimony pointing to an on-board, mid air explosion, the official conclusion was that ice on the wings led to the crash. It was a ludicrous conclusion. If the authorities had investigated this crash in the way they should have, at the very least the Iran-Contra affair would have been uncovered much earlier. Fortunately there were members of the Canadian Air Safety Board with enough courage and integrity to refuse to accept the ice on the wings theory even though these dissenting voices paid a heavy personal and professional price as a direct consequence.

Similarly, there was a failure to conduct a post mortem examination on Pope John Paul I who had one of the shortest reigning Papacies in the history of the Catholic Church. There were strong suspicions that the Pope had been murdered and there was strong evidence to suggest that the body had been moved after death. It was also clearly apparent that other important evidence had been covered up. Why would the Vatican not be interested in doing everything possible to investigate the Pope’s untimely demise after only 33 days in the job? Especially, if by doing so, the investigation pointed to a crime being committed? Instead the Vatican did the exact opposite.

The official inquiry into the death of United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown is equally puzzling. Here was a senior member of the Clinton Administration about to be investigated for corruption by Congress and a special prosecutor, who dies in a plane crash that no-one can explain and is then found with what appears to be direct evidence of a bullet hole in the top of his head. Again, would you not think that a post mortem, at the very least, would be conducted to rule out foul play? The fact that no post mortem took place, is not only baffling, it’s very troubling. What have they got to hide? Maybe everything.

Finally there is French Government complicity in a genocide that is on par with the Nazi holocaust during the Second World War. The mass slaughter of almost one million innocent Rwandan men, women and children, lasted 100 days. It was a crime against humanity. And there is strong evidence that France helped to trigger this catastrophe. But the French Government of President Francois Mitterand did its best to blame the present Rwandan Government and its President Paul Kagame. It’s taken 20 years to finally get to the bottom of who might have assassinated the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, which gave the green light to the genocide, even if we still don’t know the precise identities of the assassins.

As you are about to discover, the official explanation for what happened in these five case studies simply wasn’t credible. And that is never a good thing. It means that there can be no closure, no moving on. The relatives and the friends who lost loved ones in these disasters, are forced to live in limbo. How can you move on when people in authority, people you should be able to trust, are telling you a story that couldn’t possibly be correct? When the evidence and the questions, so many questions, suggest the exact opposite?

I firmly believe the only debt we owe the dead is the truth. I can only hope that Cover-Up is a small but significant step towards that outcome. Finally, I would like to warmly acknowledge the valuable assistance, advice and documents that I received from retired airline Captain Lee Levenson and Captain Richard Moore on the Arrow Air disaster. Former Canadian Air Safety Board representative Les Filotas who wrote an excellent book called Improbable Cause was equally generous with his time and advice. I would also like to sincerely thank John Morgan who wrote a masterful series of books on the Alma Tunnel crash and whose excellent research was an invaluable tool in helping me to cross check information.

CHAPTER 1

Secrets Of The Alma Tunnel

It’s Saturday August 30, 1997. The end of a long, hot, Paris summer. All of the popular restaurants and cafes close in August as the population escapes for summer holiday, leaving a city almost deserted except for tourists. But Paris will always be romantic Paris. The city of light celebrates beauty. It’s in love with lovers. And two have just arrived by private jet at Le Bourget airport. But they’re star-crossed lovers. He’s the son of Mohamed Al Fayed, an Egyptian millionaire, who owns Harrods, the most famous department store in the world, the Paris Ritz Hotel as well as an English Premier league soccer team. And she’s a blue blood, the most photographed woman in the World, a former member of the British royal family and the mother of a Prince who will one day become King of England. Dodi Al Fayed and Diana Spencer Princess of Wales. No match made in heaven according to the British Upper Class. Money can’t buy Mohamed Al Fayed respectability with the establishment. To them the Al Fayed family will always be a bunch of immigrant shopkeepers who own a flash foreign pub.

And what’s worse, they’re Muslim. So this love story was never going to have the happy ending.

Headstrong, impetuous, defiant and principled, Princess Diana had it all. But this is not the kind of behaviour tolerated in the British Royal family where following the company line over rides individual expression.

And it certainly didn’t help to be more popular than the Queen and loved by a public who couldn’t get enough of her. To top it off Diana’s much publicized and bitter divorce, the TV interview she gave that sent shock-waves through the Royal family and her politically embarrassing causes like the abolition of land mines when England is one of the largest land mine manufacturers and exporters in the world. Princess Diana was trouble. Big trouble. But did she cause the kind of trouble that gets you killed? It’s a question that goes to the heart of this extraordinary, intriguing and baffling mystery.

The death of the Princess provoked much speculation and allegations of a murder conspiracy involving British intelligence and the Royal Family. But conspiracy theories never go anywhere. They remain theories and nothing more. Never any proof that leads to a prosecution or a conviction.

Before I began this journey, I knew very little about what happened in the Alma Tunnel. But as an investigative journalist of 30 years’ experience and some curiosity I decided to look for whatever pointed me in the right direction: books, newspapers and magazine articles as well as television documentaries. But most importantly, what’s inside the official transcripts of the British and French investigations. I wanted to revisit and deconstruct the main parts of the evidence to see what questions it raised and more importantly if it revealed any previously unreported information. And I discovered plenty of everything, especially new information.

As I began looking, it became very apparent you don’t need a conspiracy theory to ring alarm bells about this case. What happened to Diana, Dodi and their temporary chauffeur, Henri Paul, isn’t just a tragedy. It’s wrong and very troubling. Wrong in a way that makes a mockery of justice and the law.

Finding the relevant transcripts isn’t easy. In fact the French Investigation, comprising a dossier of six thousand pages and standing more than one metre high, has vanished. A fact revealed by a French lawyer, Jean-Louis Pelletier who made the discovery while defending a paparazzi photographer who was in the Alma Tunnel on the night of the crash. The photographer was fighting a private civil prosecution brought against him by Mohamed Al Fayed. Pelletier was out to prove his client took a notorious picture of Princess Diana, in the wreckage of the Mercedes moments after the crash. The picture was published in magazines and newspapers but quickly withdrawn and placed in the French Investigation files. Pelletier told a newspaper reporter when he requested access to the dossier from the French authorities, he was told that all of the files were missing.

We are talking about a dossier that represents one of the longest and most expensive investigations in French legal history. It includes 200 witness statements, files of photographs and detailed test results. Pelletier said:

It’s the first time I’ve seen anything like this.... I know files go missing occasionally but, bearing in mind the size and importance of this particular one, it is extraordinary. I went to every different part of the building, thinking perhaps it had been moved from the High court archives to the Criminal court or the Appeal court, but no one could find it. A search on the computer to try to locate it also revealed nothing. I am amazed that something like this could simply vanish.

Along with the French Inquiry there was a parallel British Investigation, code named Operation Paget and conducted by Lord John Stevens, a former London Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Fortunately, British investigators accessed the French Dossier before it disappeared using some of the French information in the British report, otherwise much of the French Investigation and its key findings would never be publicly known. But one statement can be made with a great deal of certainty. This is not some tragic but straightforward fatal car accident. When you look at the official transcripts of the case, nothing that happened in the seconds, minutes, hours and days after the black Mercedes Benz carrying Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed crashed into pylon 13 in the Alma Tunnel has a straightforward explanation.

But in order to understand the events of the early hours of Sunday the 31 of August 1997 you need to step back further in time. The story begins a month earlier when Diana and her two sons the Princes, William and Harry, went on summer holiday to St Tropez as guests of Mohamed Al Fayed. Diana was a friend but this was the first time she’d accepted Al Fayed’s invitation to stay at his holiday house in the south of France. The Princess told close friends she wanted to spend quality time with her two boys in a secure environment and felt reassured about staying in St Tropez because Mohamed Al Fayed had his own security team.

In addition to a nice holiday, a blossoming romance was happening between Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, Mohamed’s eldest son. Three days after Diana and her sons had arrived in St Tropez, Dodi joined them on holiday. That was enough to send the paparazzi into overdrive. Diana was photographed wearing the famous leopard print swimsuit and her slightly rounded belly prompted British tabloids to run a story suggesting she was pregnant. But most importantly, Diana who seemed to have a love-hate relationship with the press made this cryptic media comment during the holiday: You’re going to get a big surprise. You’ll see, you’re going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do.

After the Princess and her sons flew back to England she told friends she really enjoyed the holiday. She must have because not long after, Diana and Dodi began spending more time together. A weekend away in Paris was followed by another summer break on the French and Italian Rivieras on board the Jonikal, Mohamed Al Fayed’s $30 million yacht. This holiday would be memorable for the infamous photograph taken by Italian paparazzi, Mario Brenna, showing Dodi kissing Diana. It would be interesting to speculate on the reaction inside Buckingham Palace when they saw that picture. The photograph earned big bucks for Brenna, $7 million from worldwide sales. Diana and Dodi returned to England to a blaze of publicity and a media feeding frenzy.

Dodi Al Fayed employed two private bodyguards for personal security. Trevor Rees-Jones and Keiran Wingfield. But Dodi didn’t always follow the advice of his bodyguards when it came to security matters. Had he done so, he and the Princess might still be alive. But I will discuss this point later in the chapter.

In the week leading up to the crash, Diana and Dodi again travelled to Nice to re join the Jonikal, for a brief cruise of the Mediterranean coasts of France, Monaco and Sardinia. At the end of the holiday, the couple flew by private jet from Sardinia to Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of Paris. Overnight in Paris was the plan before flying to London. Finding a comfortable bed wasn’t a problem. Mohamed Al Fayed owns the Ritz Hotel, as well as an apartment in Rue Arsene Houssaye just off the Champs Elysee. He also rents the historic villa in the Bois de Boulogne, once the private home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Paparazzi photographers greeted the couple at Le Bourget taking pictures as they left the plane. Two private cars were ready to pick them up: a Mercedes and a Range Rover. Dodi’s regular chauffeur, Phillipe Dourneau, would drive the couple in the Mercedes to Villa Windsor. The Range Rover, driven by Henri Paul, acting head of security at the Paris Ritz Hotel, would transport the support staff as well as the couple’s luggage to the apartment on Rue Arsene Houssaye. Henri Paul, not meant to be on duty that