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'Di needed more protection'
29/01/2008 17:39 - (SA)
London - A bodyguard protecting Princess Diana and her lover Dodi al-Fayed said on Tuesday the couple's last days were marred by a string of security problems.
Kieran Wingfield said his requests for more manpower fell on deaf ears and he complained that Dodi kept security staff in the dark about what the ill-fated couple planned to do next.
Wingfield and fellow bodyguard Trevor Rees worked up to 18 hours a day trying to protect the couple on a yachting holiday in the South of France and then in Paris where they died in a car crash along with chauffeur Henri Paul in August 1997.
"Dodi wouldn't tell us what their intentions were," Wingfield told the inquest into Diana and Dodi's deaths.
"You need to have the trust of your principal," he said. "If you don't get it, your job becomes very, very difficult."
The former Royal Marine said a minimum of eight bodyguards were needed to give them 24-hour cover but Dodi's father, luxury storeowner Mohamed al-Fayed, said: "I want this to be low-key. It's only going to be two or three days."
Ranting, incoherent
Wingfield told the court that he eventually quit the al-Fayed security team after refusing a request by Mohamed al-Fayed to take part in a programme being made about the crash.
"He started ranting at me," Wingfield said.
"He was incoherent a lot of the time, he was talking about Prince Philip, he was also talking about the British Government, he was swearing a lot," he added.
Mohamed al-Fayed alleges that Dodi and Diana were killed by British security services on the orders of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband and former father-in-law to Princess Diana.
Fayed believes her killing was ordered because the royal family did not want the mother of the future king having a child with his son. He alleges that Diana's body was embalmed to cover up evidence she was expecting a baby.
Wingfield, explaining why he quit, said: "I believe if I had stayed in the organisation, I would have been asked to do things which were going to support the conspiracy theory and so I resigned.
"I had no doubt in my mind that it was a tragic accident so I refused to take part in the programme."
- Reuters
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