Posted on Dec 14, 2006
Claims that Diana, Princess of Wales, and her lover Dodi Fayed were murdered were unfounded, according to the official Scotland Yard inquiry released on Thursday. Lord Stevens, who headed the inquiry, told a news conference that Diana was not pregnant at the time of the crash. Nor was she engaged or about to get engaged to Fayed. The long-running British police inquiry, seeking to bury almost a decade of conspiracy theories, on Thursday ruled that the princess died in a tragic car accident. Diana, 36, and 42-year-old Fayed were killed when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in the early hours of August 31, 1997. The couple had been pursued by paparazzi photographers after leaving the Ritz Hotel for Fayed's apartment. They were killed along with chauffeur Henri Paul. Paul was drunk and driving at twice the speed limit before the crash, Stevens said. Diana's death unleashed a string of conspiracy theories that British spies or even her ex-husband, heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, had plotted the accident because the couple's relationship was embarrassing the royal household.