Coroner Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said yesterday she had not seen ‘a shred of evidence’ to back claims that the former wife of the British heir-to-the-throne had been murdered.
She was responding to a request from Mohamed Al-Fayed’s lawyers to delay a long awaited inquest into the their deaths. Mohammed Al-Fayed’s son Dodi Al-Fayed died alongside Diana in a Paris car crash 10 years ago.
The death of Diana has been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories, supported by Mohamed Al-Fayed. Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, were killed in 1997 in a high-speed car crash while being followed by paparazzi in Paris, France. There followed years of allegations, led in part by Fayed’s father Mohamed Al Fayed, that the pair had been victims of a conspiracy. A three-year British investigation concluded in 2006 that,
there was no conspiracy to murder any occupants of that car. This was a tragic accident.
The British inquiry backed a French probe which concluded that the driver, Henri Paul, a Fayed employee, was to blame because he was drunk, under the influence of anti-depressants and driving too fast. Fayed has rejected both British and French findings.
Fayed got a boost last week when he won a legal challenge in the High Court that the inquest should be heard before a jury and not Butler-Sloss sitting alone. Fayed wants the inquest to be delayed till October 1, which gives his lawyers time to pore over reports and experts’ opinions.
However Butler-Sloss ruled out the possibility.
But if we study the fact sheets since Diana’s murder, it is well understood that Mohamed Al-Fayed is a human being who will not sit quiet for too long.
