No inquiry into Diana's death
2003-10-21 20:16
London - The British government on Tuesday ruled out an independent inquiry into the death of Princess Diana following a newspaper report that months before her death she had written a letter claiming there was a plot to kill her.
The report published on Monday prompted Egyptian-born tycoon Mohammed Al Fayed, the father of Diana's lover Dodi Fayed, who also died in the 1997 car crash in Paris, to call for an independent public inquiry.
The Daily Mirror newspaper said that Diana wrote the letter 10 months before she died in the crash claiming there was a plot to kill her by tampering with the brakes of her car.
She reportedly wrote to her butler and confidant Paul Burrell that someone "is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry" again.
"As everybody knows, there has been an exhaustive investigation by the French authorities into the circumstances surrounding Diana's death," a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.
"There would be nothing to be gained from repeating that here," he said.
"But clearly there will be a routine coroner's inquest in Britain once the French legal processes are completed," he added.
A French inquiry in 1999 concluded that the car crashed because the driver had been drinking and travelling too fast. But there has never been an inquest in Britain.