By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States has made public a file giving details of plot to assassinate the late Queen Elizabeth II, during her visit to California in 1983.
Threats were made by a man who sought revenge for his daughter who was “killed in Northern Ireland by a rubber bullet”, the file made available on the Bureau’s information website, the Vault had stated.
The monarch was embarking on an official visit to the United States with her late husband, Prince Philip, when the FBI got wind of the plot on February 4, 1983, a month before the visit.
Following the Queen’s death last year, a United States news agency had filed a request to FBI through the Freedom of Information Act, wanting a copy of the file which was released earlier on the week.
“He was going to attempt to harm Queen Elizabeth and would do this either by dropping some object off the Golden Gate Bridge onto the Royal Yacht Britannia when it sails underneath, or would attempt to kill Queen Elizabeth when she visited Yosemite National Park”, part of the 102-paged document reads.
In response to the threat, FBI planned to close the walkways on the Golden Gate Bridge when the yacht carrying the queen neared the spot.
The Queen went ahead with her planned visit despite the threat without any challenge.
Throughout her decades-long reign the Queen has faced several assassination attempts.
Most recently in December 2021, a man named Jaswant Singh Chail, broke into Windsor Castle with a crossbow and told police he was there to kill the monarch.
Less than an hour before his arrest, Chail, who was 19 at the time, shared a TikTok video of himself stating his plans to take revenge for the colonial-era Amritsar massacre of 1919 in India.
The Queen passed away nine months after the incident, on September 8, 2022.
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.
