British police examine Diana murder allegation

Relations of former soldier claim in letter that SAS killed princess and boyfriend

Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed died, together with chauffeur Henri Paul, after their Mercedes crashed in a Paris tunnel after it left the Ritz Hotel on the morning of August 31st, 1997. Photograph: PA/PA Wire
Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed died, together with chauffeur Henri Paul, after their Mercedes crashed in a Paris tunnel after it left the Ritz Hotel on the morning of August 31st, 1997. Photograph: PA/PA Wire

British police are examining new information which alleges Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were murdered by a member of the British military.

Scotland Yard said it was “scoping” the information and “assessing its relevance and credibility”.

The claims were passed to the Metropolitan Police by the Royal Military Police (RMP), which was told of them by the former parents-in-law of a former soldier based on information the ex-soldier had talked about in the past, according to a military source.

A letter given to the RMP is said to allege the SAS was "behind Princess Diana's death", according to the Sunday People, and to also refer to the princess's "secret diary", in which she allegedly made certain allegations.

Relevance and credibility
A statement issued by Scotland Yard said: "The Metropolitan Police Service is scoping information that has recently been received in relation to the deaths and assessing its relevance and credibility.

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“The assessment will be carried out by officers from the specialist crime and operations command. This is not a re-investigation and does not come under Operation Paget.”

Diana, Dodi and chauffeur Henri Paul died after their Mercedes crashed in a Paris tunnel after it left the Ritz Hotel on the morning of August 31st, 1997. Diana, mother of princes William and Harry, was 36 at the time of her death, while Dodi was 42.

The hearing into their deaths lasted more than 90 days with evidence from about 250 witnesses. The inquests concluded on April 7th, 2008, with a jury returning a verdict that the princess and her boyfriend were unlawfully killed.

After the hearing, the Metropolitan Police said it had spent £8 million on services arising from the inquest and the Operation Paget investigation from 2004 to 2006.

Former Met Police Commissioner Lord Stevens’s Paget investigation, published in December 2006, rejected the murder claims voiced by some, including Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al-Fayed.

Lord Stevens’s investigation found that Diana was not murdered by British spies nor by the Duke of Edinburgh and she was not pregnant nor engaged to boyfriend Dodi.

Operation Paget concluded, like the French investigation in 1999, that Mr Paul was drunk and driving at excessive speed.