- Britain's most senior police officer, probing the death
of Princess Diana more than six years ago in Paris, has said he is prepared
to question members of the British royal family including Prince Charles,
Diana's former husband, about her death.
-
- Asked on BBC News 24's HardTalk programme whether his
inquiries would involve questioning the royal family, Sir John Stevens,
the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said: "If that's necessary,
we'll do that".
-
- Then, asked in the interview -- which was picked up Friday
by Britain's Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers -- if he would quiz
Charles, Stevens replied: "Absolutely".
-
- Police in Britain were called in on January 6 to look
into the fatal car crash of Princess Diana as it emerged that she had feared
Prince Charles was out to harm her.
-
- Opening the first British probe into the death of "the
people's princess", coroner Michael Burgess said he had asked Stevens
to delve into unrelenting speculation that the deaths of Diana and her
boyfriend Dodi Fayed were more than just an accident.
-
- Diana and Fayed, along with their driver Henri Paul,
died on August 31, 1997, when their black Mercedes-Benz limousine rammed
into a pillar in an underpass beneath the Pont d'Alma in Paris as they
sped toward Fayed's apartment.
-
- Following a two-year investigation, the French authorities
concluded that the accident was chiefly the result of Paul driving too
fast under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs -- but conspiracy
theories have persisted.
-
- The horrific crash came a year after Diana's divorce
from Charles, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and heir to the British
throne, was decreed final following their increasingly stormy 15-year marriage.
-
- In a front-page exclusive on the day the British police
probe was announced, the mass circulation Daily Mirror newspaper identified
Charles as the person whom Diana feared was conspiring to physically harm
her 10 months before the Paris crash.
-
- "This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous
-- 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," scribbled
Diana in a note to her butler and confidant Paul Burrell, according to
the tabloid.
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- There was no reaction from Buckingham Palace and Charles'
official residence Clarence House to the Daily Mirror report, which was
repeated in other British news media.
-
- "As a police officer, you don't start off with any
theories, you go where the evidence takes you," Stevens said in the
interview Thursday.
-
- "You have my word we will look at this and by the
time this inquiry has been finished and we've looked at every single part
of these allegations, we will Know what the truth of the matter is and
then we will disclose that to the coroner," Stevens said.
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