Media Talk Africa: Latest Headlines in Politics, Business, Sports, and More

Recently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States released a new file containing information about a failed assassination attempt on the late Queen Elizabeth II. The plot to harm the monarch was hatched in 1983, during her planned official visit to California with her husband, Prince Philip. The FBI discovered the plot on February 4, a month before the proposed visit.

According to the 102-page file released on the Bureau’s information website, the Vault, the threat was made by a man seeking revenge for his daughter’s death in Northern Ireland. He was planning to harm Queen Elizabeth by either dropping an object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia or trying to assassinate her during her visit to Yosemite National Park.

In response, the Secret Service planned to close the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge when the yacht carrying the queen approached the area. Despite the threat, her Majesty made the visit without incident.

Throughout her decades-long reign, the Queen has endured numerous assassination attempts. Most recently, in December 2021, a man named Jaswant Singh Chail broke into Windsor Castle armed with a crossbow, and upon arrest, he told the police that he intended to kill the monarch. Chail, who was 19 years old at the time, shared a TikTok video of himself detailing his plans to avenge the colonial-era Amritsar massacre of 1919 in India, less than an hour before his arrest.

On September 8, 2022, the Queen passed away, nine months after the attempted attack. Chail was arraigned in February 2023 and pleaded guilty to charges of attempting to “injure the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, making threats to kill, and possessing an offensive weapon.”

The FBI documents became publicly available after several US news media houses filed Freedom of Information Act requests following the Queen’s death last year. Several conspiracy theories have emerged surrounding the Queen’s long reign, highlighting the multiple threats against the beloved monarch of the British Empire.