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Diana: royal family declines comment

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON DEC. 22. Conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana have been given a new lease after a senior French police investigator reportedly told a British newspaper that she was pregnant at the time of the car crash which killed her and her boyfriend, Dodi, in Paris in August 1997.

The unnamed investigator, who claimed to have seen all the relevant documents relating to the accident, dismissed allegations of foul play but said: "I can tell you that she was pregnant''. This was not mentioned in the official investigation into the accident because it was not considered relevant to the causes of the crash or her death, according to him.

The report in The Independent on Sunday, which normally steers clear of royal gossip, was seized by conspiracy `theorists', most notably Mohammed Al Fayed who went to court last week seeking an inquiry into the deaths of Diana and his son.

The Harrods' owner has consistently maintained that Diana was carrying Dodi's baby at the time of her death and alleged that the couple were victims of a conspiracy by British intelligence agencies. A spokesman for Mr. Fayed welcomed the new twist and said he was glad that there appeared to be backing for his claim. While the royal family declined comment, Paul Burrell, a former butler of Diana, dismissed the report as `monstrous'. "It is a monstrous suggestion, more tiresome speculation,'' said Mr. Burrell who claims to have been very close to her. "In the final phone call she made, the Princess would have told the people closest to her if she was pregnant. She did not because she was not.''

The suggestion has also been denied by Diana's family and friends, and a post-mortem examination in Britain did not find any evidence that she was pregnant.

The new claim comes barely two weeks before an inquest into Diana's death is to open here, and there is much speculation whether the coroner would look into it. The medical reports of the car crash victims, which have not been made public so far, are likely to be part of the 6000 pages of documents which the British coroner Michael Burgess is expected to receive from French authorities.

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