Diana: The Night She Died

Diana: The Night She Died

Timeline (2018)

Film Review

Originally released in 2006, this documentary was part of a pressure campaign led by The Tatler to force British authorities to convene an inquest into the August 31, 1997 death of Princess Diana. In the UK, the Coroner’s Act requires an inquest for all deceased British nationals returned home for burial. Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed died in a car accident in Paris.

The campaign to compel an inquest was largely triggered by a 1995 letter Diana’s former lover released in 2003 revealing that closely predicted the circumstances.

In preparing to make this film, filmmakers reviewed the 27 volumes of confidential evidence collected by the French investigating magistrate. They focus on 10 specific anomalies in the French verdict blaming driver Henri Paul (who also died in the crash) for the accident because he was drunk.

• The tunnel where the accident occurred was scrubbed clean and reopened within four hours of the crash. This destroyed critical forensic evidence.
• The 27 volumes omit the statement provided by the first witness on the scene – he reports being threatened and silenced by the police because his evidence contradicts the official police report.
• The 27 volumes omit the accident report by French traffic police.
• The 27 volumes  omit any evidence of Henri Paul’s role as a longstanding MI6 (British intelligence) agent.
• The 27 volumes omit any reference to the Mercedes collision (reported by several witnesses) with a white Fiat Uno that appears to have sent it skidding into the tunnel wall. The driver of the Fiat Uno died under suspicious circumstances in June 2000 (he allegedly set fire to himself and the Fiat Uno).
• The 27 volumes omit any reference to the disappearance of Dodi’s cellphone, which, according to video evidence, he was holding just before he got into the Mercedes.
• The French police declared Henri Paul’s drunkenness the primary cause of the crash well before his blood results were available and despite video evidence showing no evidence of intoxication.
• In addition to revealing a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, Henri Paul’s blood tests revealed a carbon monoxide level of 20.7%. The autopsy pathologists who conducted the autopsy make no effort to explain this odd finding. French authorities denied British pathologists access to Paul’s body and his blood samples.
• Contrary to standard protocol, there was no backup protection vehicle behind the car the princes was driving in.
• The Mercedes was stolen and had all its electronics ripped out three months prior the accident. Following the crash, French police denied the manufacturer access to the car to ensure it was repaired correctly.

Under massive public pressure, the British coroner finally convened an inquest in 2008. Although the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict (the judge allowed a majority verdict), they officially confirmed the official French verdict. A careful review of the inquest transcripts reveals much of the above evidence was concealed from them. See Princess Diana British Coverup and Wikispooks: John Morgan

The Billionaires Who Helped Destroy Democracy

The Mayfair Set: Four Stories About the Rise of Business and the Decline of Political Power

Directed by Adam Curtis (1999)

Film Review

The Mayfair Set is a four part documentary series profiling the right wing financiers responsible for the financialization of the British-American economy in the seventies and eighties. It also explores the simultaneous transfer of real power away from elected representatives to banks and financial markets. “Mayfair Set” refers to a private London gambling club – the Clermont Club – where many of these future billionaires were members.

Part 1 – concerns British aristocrat Colonel David Sterling, founder of the British SAS (Special Air Service). In the sixties and seventies, Sterling created a series of private mercenary armies to fight independence movements in Africa and elsewhere. In addition to secretly fighting Egypt’s invasion of Yemen in 1962, he also set up numerous arms deals for Saudi Arabia,* with the assistance of notorious Saudi arms dealer, Adnan Khashoggi.** He also created the Saudi air force.

Part 2 – concerns two right wing Clermont Club members John Slater and Tiny Rollin. Slater was a corporate raider who almost singlehandedly wiped out Britain’s manufacturing sector in the seventies and eighties. He did so by targeting specific companies for hostile takeover, stripping their assets, sacking thousands of workers, and investing the proceeds in the share market. Rollin was responsible for bilking newly independent African nations of their mines, factories and plantations.

Part 3 – concerns Slater’s fellow corporate raider, Michael Goldsmith, who emigrated to the US in 1980 and paired up with junk bond guru Michael Milken to destroy America’s manufacturing base by initiating dozens of hostile takeovers of US companies. In 1990 Milken was sentenced to 3 ½ years prison on 94 counts of fraud, racketeering and insider trading.

Part 4 – concerns the rise to power of Clermont Club darling Margaret Thatcher and her (controversial) embrace of Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. Al-Fayed saved her government when currency speculator George Soros led a vicious attack on the British pound in 1992. Al-Fayed would subsequently blow the whistle to the Guardian on all the British MPs who accepted bribes from him. Al-Fayed was father to Dodi, the boyfriend killed in the car crash with Princess Diana.

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*British arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which continue to the present day, have become extremely controversial owing to the Saudis’ carpet bombing of Yemen and the resulting humanitarian crisis.  See Shelve UK arms sales to Saudis over Yemen, say two MPs’ committees

**Khashoggi first came to public attention for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, in which George Herbert Walker Bush and other members of the Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran to finance their illegal war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Khashoggi also had direct links with the alleged 9-11 terrorists (see Spike the News) and was the uncle of Dodi Al Fayed, the boyfriend killed in the car crash with Princess Diana.