A British police inquiry ruled on Thursday that Princess Diana was not the victim of a murder plot when she died in a tragic car accident in 1997.
Diana’s death triggered a string of conspiracy theories that British spies, or even her ex-husband, heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, had plotted the accident because her relationship with Dodi al-Fayed was embarrassing the royal household.
”I’m satisfied that no attempt has been made to hold back information and we are confident that the allegations made are unfounded,” former police chief John Stevens said after a three-year probe into Diana’s death in a Paris road tunnel.
”On the evidence available now, there was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of that car. This was a tragic accident,” Stevens told reporters.
Stevens told reporters Diana was not pregnant at the time of her death and ”was not engaged and was not about to get engaged”.
Diana, Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul died when their limousine hit a pillar in the Paris road tunnel in August 1997.
A two-year French inquiry blamed the crash on Paul, saying he was drunk, under the influence of anti-depressants and driving too fast.
The top-level British investigation was ordered by former royal coroner Michael Burgess in January 2004 when he opened a British inquest into Diana’s death.
Stevens, who headed London’s police force, spent almost three years investigating what happened and interviewed Charles for several hours as part of his inquiry.
He also talked to Prince Charles’s father, the Duke of Edinburgh. Stevens said there was no evidence to link the Duke to Britain’s intelligence service MI6 as alleged by Dodi’s father, Mohamed al-Fayed.
”I very much hope that all the work we have done and the publication of this report will help to bring some closure to all who continue to mourn the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi al-Fayed and Henri Paul,” Stevens said in his report.
Even before the report was published, Mohamed al-Fayed had railed against its findings, calling them ”outrageous” and claiming Stevens had been blackmailed by British intelligence chiefs into ruling out foul play.
The Harrods department-store owner, who wants a public inquiry into the crash, believes his son and Diana were murdered by British secret services because their relationship was embarrassing the British royal family. — Reuters