Charles Drago Wrote:Some eyewitnesses describe a black MB and a white FU.

Some eyewitnesses describe a white MB and a black FU.

Seamus Coogan Wrote:

Charles Drago Wrote:Some eyewitnesses describe a black MB and a white FU.

Some eyewitnesses describe a white MB and a black FU.

Ah yes I'm tapping that vein just now. Since I am tight for space what I'll do is reach a compromise. We all confuse stuff in particularly with something as swift as moving vehicles. White or black. What interests me is the reports of a motor cycle and a car leaving!!!! Bar one or two slip ups John Morgan for myself is the money. I like his lack of bullshit, no theories, he states both cases and then presents and argument. Slanted for sure, but it's of a standard and realism that leaves the other Diana crowd looking like amateur's. If he hadn't bought into that pregnancy shite! Until ya'll get publishing this bloke really is the standard. Shame he had to publish in Nexus magazine but hey so have a few good un's!

Tracy Riddle Wrote:I've never spent much time researching this subject, but this documentary is quite good:

Quote:Sherard Cowper-Coles was the most senior infusion into the political and economic departments of the Paris embassy in 1997. He came in as the political counsellor, which means that he immediately became the head of that department.

The 2007-8 Diana inquest was told by Michael Jay, British ambassador to France, that Cowper-Coles arrived to take up his post about 12 hours after the crash. The previous head of MI6 in France, Eugene Curley, declared under oath that he was still in office at the time of the crash but was on holiday in La Rochelle, 470 km from Paris.

Other evidence revealed in my book Diana Inquest: Who Killed Princess Diana? indicates that these men were both lying and that Cowper-Coles took over from Curley at some point around two weeks before the crash took place.

Cowper-Coles was not heard from at the inquest despite the above admission that he was in Paris within 12 hours of the deaths.

In his 2011 official FCO biography interview Cowper-Coles failed to mention Princess Diana once, despite admitting the next year that the death of Princess Diana would "dominate much of the Embassy's work for years to come".

In March 2012 I published Diana Inquest: Who Killed Princess Diana? which included details of Cowper-Coles' involvement in the assassination of the princess. Seven months later Cowper-Coles published his memoirs, Ever The Diplomat, in which he made his first public admission of his role in events following Princess Diana's death.

Quote:Sherard Cowper-Coles was expecting a big job in London as he approached the end of his tour of duty in Saudi Arabia, but found that he was being posted to Kabul to oversee Britain's ambitious and controversial mission to bring stability to Afghanistan. No-one who knows Her Majesty's ambassador can have seriously expected him to stay silent.

His warning this week that the UK presence was a marathon that could last three decades, not a short sprint, has confirmed his reputation for shrewd and undiplomatic plain speaking - with a dash of self-advertisement.

Sir Sherard, 52, has been making waves since he joined the Foreign Office in 1977 with an Oxford double first in classics. He studied Arabic at the "school for spies" at Shemlan in Lebanon, using what his friend and ex-ambassador Chris Wilton calls "a brain the size of a small planet", before being sent to Cairo.

"Sherard is more than just a diplomat," says Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. "He's a man with a voice and views. Mealy-mouthed he is not." Another former colleague observes: "Sherard is talented, clever and successful, so he does attract acid comment."
Flurries of attention and controversy have accompanied Cowper-Coles in every job he has done. An indiscreet briefing on Northern Ireland when he was at the Washington embassy had unionists baying for his blood. In the early 1990s he clashed with Chris Patten, the governor of Hong Kong, over moves to democratise the colony before the handover to China. He came close to the heart of power as Robin Cook's private secretary during the Kosovo crisis, helping his prickly and gaffe-prone boss manage a difficult relationship with the mandarins.

It was a sign of change that he became the first Arabist to be posted as ambassador to Tel Aviv in 2001 as the second Palestinian intifada raged in the West Bank and Gaza.

"Tony Blair wanted to win the trust of the Israelis and Sherard played a big role in that," recalls the Middle East journalist Adel Darwish. Characteristically, he made much of studying Hebrew in north London and then wowing the natives. But schmoozing and swapping farming anecdotes with then prime minister Ariel Sharon did nothing to stop the grim deterioration of the conflict.

Next stop, with some raised eyebrows in the Arab world, was Saudi Arabia, a strategic linchpin of British policy in the region, where oil and other delicate matters such as the massive al-Yamamah arms deal had to be carefully managed. It was there, last year, that Cowper-Coles famously recommended that the Serious Fraud Office end its criminal investigation into alleged bribery by the British arms firm BAE or see grave damage to British interests - a position he still insists was justified.

The Saudis liked the tough way the man they called "Abu Henry" (after his oldest son) responded to al-Qaida terrorist attacks.
But he was forced to make a Boris Johnson style apology to the people of Nottingham when he claimed that the streets of Saudi cities were safer than theirs. Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, paid glowing public tribute when the Cowper-Coleses left (his wife Bridget is also an accomplished Arabist.) The sentiment was genuine, Saudis say. Sadly, the ambassador's pet falcons, Nour and Alwaleed, had to stay behind due to UK veterinary regulations.

Previous British envoys to Saudi Arabia have gone on to plum European capitals - compensation after the rigours of the austere Wahabi system - or a top position in Whitehall.

Cowper-Coles might have expected to become a director at the Foreign Office or follow another big hitter, Nigel Sheinwald, as the prime minister's foreign policy adviser. But Sheinwald, heading for Washington, is being replaced by another Arabist and Iraq expert.

Cowper-Coles was braced for another call about BAE when his secure phone in the Riyadh embassy rang late last year. But it was the news that he was being asked to go to Afghanistan. He was surprised, but said yes at once.

Kabul used to be a lowly grade-three posting and would have been seen as a step down after Riyadh. But that is old thinking. In the aftermath of what every Foreign Office Arabist sees as the disaster of the war in Iraq Afghanistan has become a far higher priority: the overall effort being made now is far beyond the scale of any other British diplomatic mission in the world, combining political support for the Karzai government with development aid, judicial training and other advice, to say nothing of being on the front line of an escalating war with the Taliban.

"Sherard is a big, ballsy character who's always believed he should be shaping policy rather than just implementing it," says another old friend and admirer.

Now he is getting his biggest ever chance to do that in what is without doubt the toughest job he has ever been asked to do.


The CV
Born January 8 1955
Education Freston Lodge school, New Beacon school, Tonbridge school; Latin and Greek, Hertford College Oxford; Arabic, university of Alexandria, Egypt
Family Married Bridget Elliott in 1982, four sons and a daughter
Career Joined diplomatic service 1977, various positions; speech writer for Margaret Thatcher 1983-87; first secretary to Washington 1987-1991; assistant, Foreign Office security policy department 1991-93; resident associate, International Institute for Strategic Studies 1993-94; head of the Foreign Office in Hong Kong 1994-97; political counsellor in Paris 1997-99; private secretary to foreign secretary Robin Cook 1999-2001; ambassador to Israel 2001-03; ambassador to Saudi Arabia 2003-07; ambassador to Afghanistan 2007-; awarded knighthood in 2004

Quote:BAE Systems hires Britain's former envoy to Saudi Arabia

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/feb/18/envoy-saudi-bae-systems

19th Feb, 2011

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles played a key role in ending the Serious Fraud Office's investigation into BAE's al-Yamamah arms deal

The senior British diplomat who played a central role in pressuring the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation into BAE Systems over the al-Yamamah Saudi arms deal has been hired by the defence group, the Guardian has learned.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who left the Foreign Office last October, will become BAE's international business development director, focusing on the Middle East and south-east Asia. He starts his new, full-time role next week.

The move is likely to cause uproar among anti-corruption campaigners. It will also raise further questions over the close relationship between the government and BAE, and the circumstances in which the SFO investigation was controversially dropped in 2006.

Cowper-Coles' appointment has been cleared by the prime minister's advisory committee on business appointments, which vets new jobs for former civil servants who have worked for the crown in the past two years. One of the conditions set is that Cowper-Coles must not lobby ministers or civil servants on behalf of BAE for the next two years.

The committee said: "Given that it has been four years since he had any involvement with BAE Systems as HM ambassador to Riyadh, and that the appointment will be four months since his last day of service, the appointment was approved subject to the condition that, for two years from his last day of service, he should not become personally involved in lobbying UK government ministers or crown servants, including special advisers, on behalf of his new employer."

It is understood that William Hague, the foreign secretary, has also cleared the appointment.

A fluent speaker of Arabic, Hebrew and French, Cowper-Coles was ambassador to Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006; he had three significant meetings in London in late 2006 with Robert Wardle, then director of the SFO. Cowper-Coles told Wardle that Britain's national security was at risk if the BAE investigation continued, as Saudi princes were threatening to withdraw co-operation in fighting terrorism. Two days after the last meeting, Wardle ended the investigation, attracting condemnation in Britain and abroad. Tony Blair, then prime minister, and Lord Goldsmith, attorney general, both cited national security concerns in supporting the move. Under Britain's anti-corruption laws, the government can intervene in an investigation only on such grounds and not for commercial or diplomatic reasons.

In February 2008, one of Britain's most senior judges accused the government of "holding a gun to the head" of Wardle. BAE had been lobbying the government intensively for some time.

Cowper-Coles has always defended his role, insisting that he would do the same again in similar circumstances.

It is understood that when he left the Foreign Office last year, Cowper-Coles wrote to BAE, Europe's largest defence contractor, to ask about opportunities with the group, and was surprised to be offered a full-time job.

BAE is being hit as the US and UK governments squeeze their defence budgets. The company warned on Thursday that sales from armaments and armoured vehicles generated mostly in the US would be lower than it had previously anticipated this year, having fallen 25% year on year. Sales are growing fastest in its international business, covering Australia, India and Saudi Arabia.

BAE said: "Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has joined BAE Systems as business development director, international. He brings a wealth of international experience and will provide valuable advice and support for business-winning campaigns, particularly in the Middle East. It is, of course, normal business practice for global companies who supply products and services to national governments and the armed forces to employ personnel who can help them understand, meet and exceed their customers' needs."
Brilliant career

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, 56, went on "extended leave" from the Foreign Office last June. The straight-talking veteran diplomat had served as UK ambassador to Afghanistan, and was appointed special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan in February 2009, but fell out with the Foreign Office under William Hague after clashing with senior Nato and US officials.

He had insisted that the military-driven counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan was heading for failure, and that talks with the Taliban should be prioritised. A month after he formally left the Foreign Office in October, he accused the British army of submitting "misleadingly optimistic" reports on the state of the war.

Cowper-Coles joined the Foreign Office in 1977 with an Oxford double first in classics. He studied Arabic at the "school for spies" at Shemlan in Lebanon, using what his friend and fellow ex-ambassador Chris Wilton calls "a brain the size of a small planet", before being sent to Cairo.Friends say that he was not interested on leaving government after more than 40 years in taking up a "portfolio" career made up of several private sector jobs, and did not want to work for a bank or an oil company.

Quote:BAE Systems: Timeline of bribery allegations

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/8216172/BAE-Systems-timeline-of-bribery-allegations.html

Dawn Meredith Wrote:

Tracy Riddle Wrote:I've never spent much time researching this subject, but this documentary is quite good:

Darn the video is unavailable. It will be 19 years tomorrow.

I so remember that terrible Sat. night. Erick and I were in bed and were watching a James Taylor concert on tv. Since listening to music at night only worsens my insomnia, I decided to change the station as we had plans the next morning with Erick's family. Bad idea. I ended up being up all night in disbelief and tears. I was suspicious from the start, but I suppose that comes from a lifetime of studying deep events. Sigh.... I remember Erick's wonderful dad- God rest his soul- suggesting that the driver was "probably drunk". I became so angered at that comment that I invented a reason to leave the house to calm down.

Man, I Miss Jan!!! I wonder if he ever ventures back to his onetime "home".

I think there must be better threads somewhere on here on this murder. This was just the first I happened upon.

Dawn