Assassin may have murdered Diana in plan mirroring Milosevic plot, admits former spy

Richard Tomlinson said the way Diana died bore an "eerie similarity" to assassination plans he was shown in 1992.

He said documents shown to him by an MI6 officer suggested three ways that the Serbian President could be murdered.

One way was to kill him "in a staged car crash, possibly during one of his visits to the ICFY (International Conference on the former Yugoslavia) in Geneva".

It "even provided a suggestion about how this could be done, such as disorientating Milosevic's chauffeur using a blinding strobe light as the cavalcade passed through one of Geneva's motorway tunnels".

Witnesses to the events of August 31, 1997, claim to have seen a "bright white flash" in the Alma tunnel in Paris moments before the crash in which Diana and Dodi Fayed died.

After watching a documentary on Diana's death, Tomlinson wrote a letter to the French authorities containing details of the plans.

Yesterday, the inquest was told that an unnamed MI6 officer had confirmed he had written a document, but it was not about Milosevic.

He said it referred to a figure in the Balkans who had been involved in genocide.

Mr Tomlinson, 44, giving evidence via videolink from Marseilles, said: "I can't dispute that, because I can't specifically remember now, and it may be that it was someone else. But the fact is, they did propose to assassinate someone."

He added: "MI6 do have the capacity to stage accidents, whether by helicopter, aeroplane or car."

Mr Tomlinson, who was employed by MI6 between September 1991 and April 1995, also had suspicions that Diana's chauffeur Henri Paul was employed by British security services, he told the High Court.

He said a separate file had revealed that someone on the payroll was French, worked at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and had an interest in flying – a description exactly fitting Mr Paul.

"I have never once claimed Henri Paul was working for SIS (the British Secret Intelligence Service), but I believe there was a French person there who was working for the SIS," he said.

"Henri Paul, if I am correct, was a security officer in the Ritz Hotel.

"Someone of that profile in a large hotel, a hotel which is used often by persons of significant intelligence interest, is one of the first people intelligence officers try to recruit."

The claim that British security services were involved in planning an accident to kill Diana and Dodi is one of the theories surrounding her death. However, the inquiry into Diana's death by Lord Stevens concluded that while MI6 officers were in Paris, there was no evidence to suggest they were involved. The inquest continues.