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Diana documentary sparks controversy

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: A documentary, to be shown by Channel 4 next week, containing "explicit'' pictures of a badly injured Princess Diana taken moments after the car crash in a Paris underpass that killed her and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed 10 years ago, has sparked a controversy and the channel is under growing pressure to drop it on grounds that the images are too "intrusive'' and will cause "distress'' to Princes William and Harry.

It has been reported that some of the pictures were offered to the British media by the paparazzi hours after the fatal crash on August 31 1997 but they decided not to use them for fear of being accused of insensitivity.

An American TV network, which telecast them at the time, was widely condemned in Britain.

The row over Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel, to be telecast on June 6, followed a report in The Observer that some of the pictures in the programme were too "graphic." People close to the late Princess denounced them as "grossly intrusive'' and expressed "shock'' that a British TV channel should be planning to telecast them.

But Channel 4 dismissed The Observer report as "misleading'' and denied that any of the pictures identified Diana or any other occupant of the car.

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