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Former head of MI6 says Diana speculation `absurd'

"I do not want to be flippant. I'm tempted to say I'm flattered, but this is such an absurd allegation that it is difficult to deal with."

Richard Dearlove, former MI6 head

The former head of Britain's overseas intelligence service on Wednesday denied at a formal inquest that Princess Diana was killed on orders from senior royals because she was pregnant and about to marry a Muslim.

Richard Dearlove gave testimony, rare for a spymaster, at a coroner's inquest into the deaths of Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 30, 1997.

Mohammed al Fayed, Dodi's father, has claimed the couple were killed as part of an establishment plot to prevent the mother of Britain's future king marrying a Muslim and having his child.

But other witnesses at the long-running London hearing have denied the engagement and pregnancy claims.

Dearlove, making a rare exception to the principle in the security services never to comment on allegations made against it, flatly denied the charges, saying they were "absurd" and "completely off the map."

Lawyer Ian Burnett, for the coroner, asked him: "During the whole of your time in SIS [the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6], from 1966 to 2004, were you ever aware of the service assassinating anyone?"

"No, I was not," Dearlove said.

"No assassinations under your authority in any of those posts?" Burnett asked.

"No," Dearlove said, adding that he considered such a suggestion to be both a collective slight on its officers and a personal attack. Assassination plays no part in Her Majesty's Secret Services, he said.

He told the hearing it would also have been an "impossibility" for even "rogue elements" to do so and that regional MI6 stations, including in Paris, were tightly controlled from London.

Two former British agents have claimed on the record that MI6 plotted to assassinate high-profile political figures, including Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and a prominent Balkan politician.

Dearlove headed the operations branch at MI6 from 1994 to 1999 and was its chief -- or "C" -- from 1999 to 2004.

Al Fayed, the multimillionaire owner of the upmarket Harrods department store in London, on Monday claimed Diana and Dodi were murdered and that the princess told him she feared senior royals were trying to "get rid" of her.

Those he implicated included Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II's husband Prince Philip, former prime minister Tony Blair, MI6, its domestic counterpart MI5, journalists and newspaper editors.

Dearlove said that MI6 is legally bound to request the authorization to carry out any operation that involved breaking the law -- such as bugging -- and it did not ask for any permission with regard to the princess in 1997.

No eavesdropping, bugging, surveillance operation or "anything anyone could think of" was being conducted against either Diana or Dodi Fayed when they holidayed together in the weeks leading up to their trip to Paris, he said.

He told the jury it was "utterly ridiculous" to allege that princes Philip and Charles were active members of MI6 and "absurd" for al Fayed to claim the security services and the queen's husband actually run Britain.

"I do not want to be flippant. I'm tempted to say I'm flattered, but this is such an absurd allegation that it is difficult to deal with," Dearlove said. "It's completely off the map. I cannot think of any other way of saying it."
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