Diana's death finally probed

2004-01-05 18:20

London - Conspiracy theorists will be on the edge of their seats on Tuesday when the first inquest on British soil into the sensational and horrific August 1997 death of Princess Diana finally opens.

But coroner Michael Burgess's findings are unlikely to end speculation that the Paris car crash that killed the "people's princess" and lover Dodi Fayed was the result of high-level foul play.

Burgess will be opening two parallel inquests - one in London for Diana, whose untimely death a year after her divorce from Prince Charles shocked the world, and another in outlying Surrey for Fayed.

Fayed was the son of Mohamed Al Fayed, the Egyptian-born owner of Harrods department store and the Paris Ritz hotel, whose legal proceedings in France are the reason why the British inquest is only now about to start.

"The purpose of an inquest - and it is a judicial process - is to identify who died, when and where the death occurred, and how the cause of death arose," Louise Footner, a spokesperson for Burgess, said on Monday.

"It does not necessarily go into all the speculation, the whys and wherefores," she told AFP. "The coroner's remit is to identify the cause of death. He will not necessarily go into every speculation there has been."

Under English law, inquests need to be called whenever the body of a British citizen who dies abroad is returned home for burial.

Burgess, who by coincidence acts as coroner for both the British royal family and for Surrey county, is expected to open each of the two inquests with short statements.

He will then adjourn to delve into 6 000 pages of unpublished material gathered by the French authorities - all of which will have to be translated into English.

Diana, 36, and Fayed, 42, died on August 31, 1997 after their Mercedes-Benz limousine crashed at high speed in an underpass that runs by the Pont d'Alma in the west end of the French capital.

The official French investigation pinned blame on driver Henri Paul, an employee of the Ritz hotel, for driving too fast and hitting a pillar in the tunnel while under the influence of alcohol.

Three photographers who pursued the couple on motorcycles were exonerated by a French court on November 28 following a civil suit lodged by Al Fayed on the basis of French privacy laws.

Al Fayed has long suspected that Diana and his son, who had a home in Surrey, southwest of London, were the victims of a murder conspiracy, possibly involving secret agents working on orders from high up.

That theory gained new life last year with claims from Diana's former butler Paul Burrell that she had told him in writing that she feared for her life, less than a year before the crash.

Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees Jones was the sole survivor of the crash on the short trip from the Ritz to Fayed's Paris apartment, but he has said he can recall little of what happened that night.

- AFP