- PARIS -- A senior police
source in France has told The Independent on Sunday that Diana, Princess
of Wales, was pregnant at the time of her death following a road accident
in Paris six years ago.
-
- The source - who saw all the documents relating to the
case surrounding the Princess's death - dismisses suggestions that there
was any murder conspiracy before the death of Diana, her friend Dodi al-Fayed
and their driver in a car crash on 31 August 1997.
-
- He was speaking after a British coroner announced that
he would hold inquests into the cause of the deaths of Diana and Dodi,
beginning on 6 January.
-
- However, the source revealed to The Independent on Sunday
that there was "a cover-up of sorts" in the days following the
crash. Medical reports, which have never been made public, showed that
Diana was pregnant at the time of her death. "I can tell you that
she was pregnant," the source said.
-
- Friends of Diana and her butler, Paul Burrell, have strenuously
denied in the past suggestions that the Princess was expecting a third
child at the time of her death.
-
- The source implied that Diana's pregnancy was hushed
up to spare the embarrassment of her family. Since it was not regarded
as relevant to the causes of the accident, or her death, it was not mentioned
at the end of the two-year judicial investigation into the crash by a French
judge, Hervé Stephan.
-
- Medical reports from the hospital where Diana died may,
however, be included among the 6,000 pages of documents from the French
investigation which will be delivered to the British coroner, Michael Burgess,
next month.
-
- Reports that Diana was pregnant - first alleged by Mohammed
al-Fayed soon after her death - have been seized on by the wilder conspiracy
theorists as a possible motive for an assassination plot by the Royal Family
and British government.
-
- The same police source in France rejected all these theories
and said the investigation file points clearly to an accident, caused in
part by the fact that chauffeur Henri Paul had been drinking heavily.
-
- There has also been speculation about the time it has
taken to call a British inquest, now routine when a British citizen dies
abroad. The coroner has said that he could not open the hearings until
he received the French file once legal proceedings were completed in France.
-
- These proceedings have been prolonged mostly by Mr Fayed,
who appealed against the original decision by French authorities to bring
no action against the photographers who pursued Diana and Dodi's car. When
that appeal was lost, Mr Fayed brought another action against three photographers
for invading his son's privacy. The case was thrown out by a French court
last month.
-
- The royal coroner, Mr Burgess, announced on Thursday
that he would begin separate inquests into Diana and Dodi's deaths next
month, but indicated that the full hearings will be delayed until the whole
French file has been translated and studied.
-
- Mr Burgess said last week: "At neither hearing will
I be receiving evidence from witnesses in person. I will, however, make
a statement which will cover the purpose of the inquests, how they may
be expected to be conducted and the nature and scope of the evidence I
expect to receive."
- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=475166
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