No conspiracy behind Diana’s death: Report
Foreign Desk Report

LONDON —Princess Diana’s death in a Paris car crash was a “tragic accident” a long-awaited report has concluded, dismissing theories of a murder plot by British intelligence. Its author however admitted Thursday that conspiracy rumours will likely continue to circulate, despite his three-year inquiry coming to largely the same conclusions as a French probe seven years ago.
“There was no conspiracy to murder any occupants of that car. This was a tragic accident,” said Lord John Stevens, the former commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, unveiling the 800-page report. His inquiry also rejected speculation that Diana was pregnant at the time of the crash in 1997. “We are certain that the Princess of Wales was not pregnant,” Stevens said, adding that he had also questioned numerous people, including the princess’s son Prince William, about the claim that she planned to marry her boyfrend Dodi Al-Fayed, who was also killed in the crash. “None of them have indicated that she was either about to or wished to get engaged,” he said, adding that Prince William had told him his mother did not give him the slightest indication of such intentions.
Even before the report was published, Dodi’s father, Mohammed Al-Fayed had dismissed its leaked findings as “garbage,” and insisted a conspiracy was behind the couple’s death. Fleeing paparazzi photographers, Diana, 36, Dodi Al-Fayed, 42, and chauffeur Henri Paul, 41, were killed when their car smashed into a pillar in a Paris underpass in the early hours of August 31 that year. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived.
Many blamed the pursing paparazzi for having contributed to the crash, but in 1999 a French investigation formally cleared nine photographers and a press motorcyclist of manslaughter charges. In February this year, three photographers were convicted of breaching France’s privacy laws for taking pictures of Diana and Dodi on the night they died. Fayed has long maintained that it was a conspiracy involving British intelligence agents, and notably said Paul’s blood samples, which showed his blood-alcohol level at three times the French legal limit, were switched to falsely implicate him as drunk.