The former head of MI6 today denied that the intelligence services made a practice of planning assassinations, and especially that the agency had plotted to murder Diana, Princess of Wales.

Sir Richard Dearlove, who retired as head of MI6 in 2004, said that when an agent had drawn up plans to kill a Balkan leader in 1993, the proposal was immediately dismissed as out of touch with the ethos and practices of Her Majesty's secret services.

In testimony that may disappoint some James Bond fans, he revealed that Secret Intelligence Service agents were not trained to kill with the use of strobe lights in road tunnels - as was alleged in the case of the Princess - nor could such an operation have been carried out by a rogue element within MI6, he said.

He added that the Princess had not been considered a threat to national security, nor was Mohamed Al Fayed regarded with any interest within the service. The Princess was not under MI6 surveillance during her last days.

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Sir Richard was making a rare exception to MI6’s principle of not commenting on allegations made against it by appearing at the inquests into the deaths of the Princess and Dodi Fayed.

He will be followed into the witness stand by a series of former and serving members of the SIS. To protect their identity, reporters and the public will be denied access to the courtroom but will be able to listen to proceedings via an audio link in a court annex.

Claims that MI6 has plotted assassinations have come from two renegade former British agents. The former MI5 officer David Shayler claimed that SIS agents along with one of its Libyan agents were involved in a plot to kill Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader.

Asked about the claim, Sir Richard said that it was just “not true”, and that the Metropolitan Police who investigated the issue after the claim became public in February 1996 had found it was “without substance”.

The other came from Richard Tomlinson, a former MI6 spy, who earlier told the inquests that a colleague named only as 'A' drew up detailed plans in 1993 to kill a top Balkan leader suspected of genocide to prevent him coming to power.

Sir Richard admitted that the Balkan plot, mentioned by Mr Tomlinson, did exist, but said that it was “killed stone dead” after it was put down on paper. The idea was “out of touch with service practice, service ethos and it was not a proposal which consideration would be given,” he said.

Sir Richard said that this document was stripped of its reference number, which was later reissued, and shredded without being circulated, he said.

Ian Burnett QC, for the coroner, asked: “The question arises is that if you are saying that SIS does not contemplate assassination that one of its officers could have raised the possibility and committed it to writing?”

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