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An inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has been opened.
From "The New York Times"
January 7, 2004
British Coroner Opens Long-Stalled Inquest Into Diana''s Death
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Jan. 6 — The car crash that killed Diana, the Princess of Wales, was never a simple accident to the conspiracy theorists it inspired, with their tales of secret plots and shadowy schemes at the highest levels of the British establishment.
Officials have generally dismissed such notions as groundless and absurd. But on Tuesday, as the royal coroner opened the formal, long-delayed inquests into the deaths in 1997 of Diana and her boyfriend, Emad Mohamed al-Fayed, he said he would consider whether to include the theories in his investigation.
"I am aware that there is speculation that these deaths were not the result of a sad, but relatively straightforward, road traffic accident in Paris," the coroner, Michael Burgess, said in opening the proceedings at a conference center here.
"I have asked the metropolitan police commissioner to make inquiries," Mr. Burgess said. "The results of these inquiries will help me decide whether such matters will fall within the scope of the investigation carried out at the inquests."
The inquests, conducted as a matter of routine when British citizens die violently abroad and are buried back home, would normally have begun soon after the deaths of Diana and Mr. Fayed, known as Dodi. They died on Aug. 31, 1997, when the Mercedes in which they were riding spun out of control in a Paris underpass as the driver, who was also killed, tried to elude members of the paparazzi.
The inquiries have been held up because of lingering legal aspects of the French investigation, including efforts by Mr. Fayed''s father, Mohamed al-Fayed, to bring civil charges against three of the eight photographers pursuing the car.
A French inquiry concluded in 1999 that the crash was an accident brought on because the driver, Henri Paul, was drunk and speeding dangerously. A criminal case against the photographers following the car also came to nothing.
Neither quelled speculation about the real causes of the accident, or answered questions that still buzz around the crash: Was Diana pregnant? What happened to a white car that was seen in the vicinity of the accident but mysteriously vanished? Why did blood tests show that Mr. Paul had breathed in huge quantities of carbon monoxide before he died?
According to The Times of London, about 27 percent of Britons believe that the princess was murdered, perhaps because her affair with Mr. Fayed was embarrassing to the British establishment, and perhaps because her popularity and unregal, sometimes erratic behavior had become liabilities for the royal family.
Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods department store, has been the most public proponent of the murder theory, charging that Diana and his son were killed by Britain''s security services. Several books have also made the case that the deaths were assassinations authorized by the monarchy and carried out by MI6, Britain''s equivalent of the C.I.A.
In a strange twist, Diana herself appears to have believed that her life was in jeopardy. In a letter written 10 months before the crash, she said that "this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous," according to Paul Burrell, her former butler, who included the letter — blanking out the name of the person Diana believed to be conspiring against her — in his recent tell-all book about the princess.
On Tuesday, The Daily Mirror, a tabloid newspaper that bought the rights to Mr. Burrell''s story, identified the person whom Diana apparently feared as her ex-husband, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.
The full text of the relevant passage in the letter, it reported, reads: "My husband is planning `an accident'' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry."
The Mirror''s editor, Piers Morgan, defended the decision to publish Prince Charles''s name, saying that Mr. Burrell had been ordered to turn the letter over to the inquest and that its contents would have become public anyway.
Meanwhile, Colleen Harris, Prince Charles''s former press secretary, told reporters that the claim was "preposterous" and "utter nonsense."
In an op-ed article in The Daily Mail, the thriller writer Frederick Forsyth said Tuesday that the murder theories were "as weird as they are offensive."
Mr. Forsyth wrote that it is nearly impossible to kill a well-guarded public figure, as Diana was, and make the crime look like an accident. "Out goes the rifle, the handgun, the knife, poison, the bomb, the noose and the fall off the cliff," he said.
Though the cause of high excitement in British news media circles, the events on Tuesday were hardly the start of a thrilling new phase in the long and winding story of the princess''s death.
No sooner did Mr. Burgess open the princess''s inquest — and a separate one for Mr. Fayed, in Surrey — than he adjourned both, saying he needed at least a year to examine all the material that has and will be forthcoming from Paris, including hundreds of pages of documents.
The scope of the inquiry is a narrow one, answering just four basic questions, Mr. Burgess said: "who the dead person was, and how, when and where the cause of death arose." It is not a criminal case and will not decide questions of liability.
Mr. Burgess said he was in touch with family members of the princess and Mr. Fayed and did not want to "trespass on their grief."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help |
From "The New York Times"
January 7, 2004
British Coroner Opens Long-Stalled Inquest Into Diana''s Death
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, Jan. 6 — The car crash that killed Diana, the Princess of Wales, was never a simple accident to the conspiracy theorists it inspired, with their tales of secret plots and shadowy schemes at the highest levels of the British establishment.
Officials have generally dismissed such notions as groundless and absurd. But on Tuesday, as the royal coroner opened the formal, long-delayed inquests into the deaths in 1997 of Diana and her boyfriend, Emad Mohamed al-Fayed, he said he would consider whether to include the theories in his investigation.
"I am aware that there is speculation that these deaths were not the result of a sad, but relatively straightforward, road traffic accident in Paris," the coroner, Michael Burgess, said in opening the proceedings at a conference center here.
"I have asked the metropolitan police commissioner to make inquiries," Mr. Burgess said. "The results of these inquiries will help me decide whether such matters will fall within the scope of the investigation carried out at the inquests."
The inquests, conducted as a matter of routine when British citizens die violently abroad and are buried back home, would normally have begun soon after the deaths of Diana and Mr. Fayed, known as Dodi. They died on Aug. 31, 1997, when the Mercedes in which they were riding spun out of control in a Paris underpass as the driver, who was also killed, tried to elude members of the paparazzi.
The inquiries have been held up because of lingering legal aspects of the French investigation, including efforts by Mr. Fayed''s father, Mohamed al-Fayed, to bring civil charges against three of the eight photographers pursuing the car.
A French inquiry concluded in 1999 that the crash was an accident brought on because the driver, Henri Paul, was drunk and speeding dangerously. A criminal case against the photographers following the car also came to nothing.
Neither quelled speculation about the real causes of the accident, or answered questions that still buzz around the crash: Was Diana pregnant? What happened to a white car that was seen in the vicinity of the accident but mysteriously vanished? Why did blood tests show that Mr. Paul had breathed in huge quantities of carbon monoxide before he died?
According to The Times of London, about 27 percent of Britons believe that the princess was murdered, perhaps because her affair with Mr. Fayed was embarrassing to the British establishment, and perhaps because her popularity and unregal, sometimes erratic behavior had become liabilities for the royal family.
Mohamed al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods department store, has been the most public proponent of the murder theory, charging that Diana and his son were killed by Britain''s security services. Several books have also made the case that the deaths were assassinations authorized by the monarchy and carried out by MI6, Britain''s equivalent of the C.I.A.
In a strange twist, Diana herself appears to have believed that her life was in jeopardy. In a letter written 10 months before the crash, she said that "this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous," according to Paul Burrell, her former butler, who included the letter — blanking out the name of the person Diana believed to be conspiring against her — in his recent tell-all book about the princess.
On Tuesday, The Daily Mirror, a tabloid newspaper that bought the rights to Mr. Burrell''s story, identified the person whom Diana apparently feared as her ex-husband, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne.
The full text of the relevant passage in the letter, it reported, reads: "My husband is planning `an accident'' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry."
The Mirror''s editor, Piers Morgan, defended the decision to publish Prince Charles''s name, saying that Mr. Burrell had been ordered to turn the letter over to the inquest and that its contents would have become public anyway.
Meanwhile, Colleen Harris, Prince Charles''s former press secretary, told reporters that the claim was "preposterous" and "utter nonsense."
In an op-ed article in The Daily Mail, the thriller writer Frederick Forsyth said Tuesday that the murder theories were "as weird as they are offensive."
Mr. Forsyth wrote that it is nearly impossible to kill a well-guarded public figure, as Diana was, and make the crime look like an accident. "Out goes the rifle, the handgun, the knife, poison, the bomb, the noose and the fall off the cliff," he said.
Though the cause of high excitement in British news media circles, the events on Tuesday were hardly the start of a thrilling new phase in the long and winding story of the princess''s death.
No sooner did Mr. Burgess open the princess''s inquest — and a separate one for Mr. Fayed, in Surrey — than he adjourned both, saying he needed at least a year to examine all the material that has and will be forthcoming from Paris, including hundreds of pages of documents.
The scope of the inquiry is a narrow one, answering just four basic questions, Mr. Burgess said: "who the dead person was, and how, when and where the cause of death arose." It is not a criminal case and will not decide questions of liability.
Mr. Burgess said he was in touch with family members of the princess and Mr. Fayed and did not want to "trespass on their grief."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help |
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