'You Nazi b******s killed my Dodi'

02.03.07

Mr al Fayed has won a ruling overturning deputy royal coroner Baroness Butler-Sloss's decision

Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed declared his son Dodi had been killed by "Nazi b******s", just minutes after a judge ruled the inquest into his death would be heard by a jury.

A sensational High Court ruling means that Mr Fayed will 'get his day in court' and put his extraordinary allegations to 12 members of the public.

Also see

• Diana case could change privacy laws

• After 10 years, Fayed finally has a victory

The decision prompted an outburst from the Harrods chairman in which he demanded that Prince Philip and Charles be called to give evidence. "This country is ruled by donkeys. They are gangsters and murderers and Nazi bastards who killed my son," he said.

He said of the ruling: "I am very happy. It means we have got an ordinary jury."

A £4 million report last year concluded the 1997 car crash was an accident caused by chauffeur Henri Paul being drunk and driving too fast through a Paris underpass while being pursued by paparazzi.

But Mr Fayed maintains the couple were murdered and claims their deaths were part of a plot by the British establishment worried that Diana was to have a Muslim child with Dodi. He has specifically singled out Prince Philip.

In emotional scenes outside the High Court, Mr Fayed accused Mr Paul, who was also killed in the crash, of working for MI6.

He also said Tony Blair was aware that Diana, 36, and Dodi, 42, were murdered. He said: "I want Charles and Philip together in the court. These are the people who ordered the murder.

"I am certain when we see all the evidence and all the proof their (the jury's) judgment will come definitely and approve my belief.

"How can this happen in a great country? Our politicians are like zombies. Tony Blair himself knows what happened to Diana and my son."

The inquest before a jury could start in May. Today's ruling overturns a decision by Lady Butler-Sloss who wanted to hear the inquest alone.

It could also pave the way for further curbs on sections of the media, including a possible privacy law.

The decision will be a further blow for the royal family who had hoped the conspiracy theories would die down following December's report by former Met chief Lord Stevens which said the crash was simply a tragic accident.

During the hearing of Mr Fayed's application, the judges were told there was an "eerie similarity" between the paparazzi pursuit of the Princess and their recent "hounding" of her son Prince William's girlfriend Kate Middleton.

The judges said: "It is likely that there will be a recurrence of the type of event in which the paparazzi on wheels pursued the princess and Dodi al Fayed."

They were shown letters by former prime minister John Major and Press Complaints Commission chairman Sir Christopher Meyer voicing their concerns over the media harassment faced by Miss Middleton.

In their statement, the High Court judges said the letters "drew attention to the dangers of such behaviour and called for new sanctions against the paparazzi".

The High Court statement added: "It is not only members of the royal family and their friends who receive this unwelcome attention. Any celebrity is vulnerable.

"Not only is the safety of the person pursued potentially put at risk but there may well be a risk to bystanders.

"In our view, occurrences such as this are prejudicial to the safety of a section of the public. It is possible that this danger could be prevented by legislation or other means."

This was a key factor in the judges' decision to have a jury which could make recommendations on changes to the current law.

The High Court also said that although Lady Butler-Sloss's earlier ruling not to have a jury was legally correct it gave the wrong "appearance".

Lady Butler-Sloss has also been forced to ditch the ancient title Deputy Coroner of the Royal Household and will sit as assistant deputy coroner for Surrey.

Mr Fayed said of the inquest: "I hope it will happen before the 10th anniversary of their deaths. I want it to sit as soon as possible. I will leave no stone unturned until I get all the witnesses I believe committed this crime and ordered the crime.

"I am the father who lost his son and the only person who knows exactly what happened."

He said that six months before Diana died she knew she would be murdered. He said: "She was going to be murdered in a car and no one did anything to protect her."

A spokeswoman for Clarence House said: "We have no comment to make. It is a matter for the courts."

But she added that people should refer to the letter placed in court on behalf of Harry and William.

In particular, she read out the section saying: "The princes have asked me to indicate that it is their desire that the inquest should not only be open, fair and transparent but that it should move swiftly to a conclusion."

Add your view

I'm with the conspiracy theorists on Diana's death

Mary Dejevsky

Too many people have tried too hard to convince us for us to accept it was an accident

Published: 12 December 2006

It's time to come out. And half-way between Sunday night's BBC documentary, How Diana Died, and the publication of Lord Steven's report offers as good an opening as any. I'll admit it straight: along with 30 per cent of the British population, I simply cannot be persuaded that Princess Diana's death was an accident.

Oh, I know the very juxtaposition of the words "Princess" and "Diana" marks me out as a commoner - and therefore unreliable in such matters. Those really in the know speak scrupulously of "Diana, Princess of Wales". And the establishment, joined for once by the metropolitan chattering classes, has done its best to dismiss us sceptics on the Diana question as fantasists and fools. Perhaps we are.

Then again, look at the delays. Look at the elements that still have to be explained. Look, finally, at the efforts "they" have applied, even at this late stage, to trying to "prove" us wrong.

We know that French police and French ministers might not be the easiest partners in an investigation. We suspect France might not be the best-ordered country in a crisis such as the one that brought the mortally injured princess to hospital in the small hours of the morning. But why has it taken the best part of nine years for an inquest to be held? Why did the Fayed family have to threaten court action for even the preliminaries to the inquest to be held in public? If any death is of public interest, surely it is that of Diana. Then those nagging details. It concerns me not at all whether Diana was pregnant, and if so, by whom. I am profoundly uninterested in Dodi's intentions when he bought that ring. I am not even sure that the prospect of the Fayeds being brought into the royal circle supplies a motive for murder. Other things trouble me more: the small, elementary things that do not add up.

Why were none of the CCTV cameras at the Paris Ritz working that evening? What about that small white car that some saw in the tunnel? Why should the driver, drunk or sober, have been in the pay of the French secret services, and why - as we now learn - were Diana's phone calls monitored by US intelligence? Why did it take so long to transport Diana to hospital? What about the speed with which the tunnel was cleaned, and why were Mercedes mechanics not permitted to examine the car?

Time and again we are told that the conspiracy theory has been discredited. But it is not discredited just because the BBC reports DNA evidence that "proves" the driver's blood sample was really his. Drunk or sober, an agent has his uses. The BBC protests too much. By leading the weekend news on this detail, it imposed argument on fact. I felt hectored by an item that essentially promoted Sunday's documentary. This, too, was strange. How Diana Died was the first of a series on conspiracy theories. It was shown the weekend before Lord Stevens publishes his report. How neatly it all hangs together. If the Diana conspiracy is classed as just one of a half a dozen daft theories swallowed by the gullible, it must soon be discredited with the rest.

This conspiracy, however, is not so easily dispatched. Diana herself claimed that there was a plot to kill her in a car crash less than a year before she died, and the method is a staple of security services the world over. My personal conspiracy theory stops short of suggesting who did it, but motive there surely was. By breaking free from the Royal Family and behaving as indiscreetly as she did, Diana was subverting the monarchy, and thus the state.

The establishment may have underestimated the threat to the social order from her untimely death, but what of the destabilising effect had she lived? With the hindsight of 10 years, it can be said that the standing of the Royal Family has benefited from the absence of Diana.

I do not generally favour conspiracy theories, preferring the cock-up school of history. I never blamed the US government for the Oklahoma bomb and divined no darker secret behind the planes that smashed into the World Trade Centre. I don't see Dr David Kelly's death as anything other than suicide. I don't even believe the Prime Minister lied about Iraq's lethal weapons; I fear he believed in every last tonne. Nor can I offer any explanation for the poisoning of the former spy, Alexander Litvinenko. I just do not think it was in Putin's interests to have ordered it.

Diana's death is different. There has been too much secrecy. Too many people have tried too hard to convince us we should not believe what we do believe for us to accept that it was only an accident. Which reminds me of something else I don't believe: that only one in three Britons shares this view.

m.dejevsky@ independent.co.uk

It's time to come out. And half-way between Sunday night's BBC documentary, How Diana Died, and the publication of Lord Steven's report offers as good an opening as any. I'll admit it straight: along with 30 per cent of the British population, I simply cannot be persuaded that Princess Diana's death was an accident.

Oh, I know the very juxtaposition of the words "Princess" and "Diana" marks me out as a commoner - and therefore unreliable in such matters. Those really in the know speak scrupulously of "Diana, Princess of Wales". And the establishment, joined for once by the metropolitan chattering classes, has done its best to dismiss us sceptics on the Diana question as fantasists and fools. Perhaps we are.

Then again, look at the delays. Look at the elements that still have to be explained. Look, finally, at the efforts "they" have applied, even at this late stage, to trying to "prove" us wrong.

We know that French police and French ministers might not be the easiest partners in an investigation. We suspect France might not be the best-ordered country in a crisis such as the one that brought the mortally injured princess to hospital in the small hours of the morning. But why has it taken the best part of nine years for an inquest to be held? Why did the Fayed family have to threaten court action for even the preliminaries to the inquest to be held in public? If any death is of public interest, surely it is that of Diana. Then those nagging details. It concerns me not at all whether Diana was pregnant, and if so, by whom. I am profoundly uninterested in Dodi's intentions when he bought that ring. I am not even sure that the prospect of the Fayeds being brought into the royal circle supplies a motive for murder. Other things trouble me more: the small, elementary things that do not add up.

Why were none of the CCTV cameras at the Paris Ritz working that evening? What about that small white car that some saw in the tunnel? Why should the driver, drunk or sober, have been in the pay of the French secret services, and why - as we now learn - were Diana's phone calls monitored by US intelligence? Why did it take so long to transport Diana to hospital? What about the speed with which the tunnel was cleaned, and why were Mercedes mechanics not permitted to examine the car?

Time and again we are told that the conspiracy theory has been discredited. But it is not discredited just because the BBC reports DNA evidence that "proves" the driver's blood sample was really his. Drunk or sober, an agent has his uses. The BBC protests too much. By leading the weekend news on this detail, it imposed argument on fact. I felt hectored by an item that essentially promoted Sunday's documentary. This, too, was strange. How Diana Died was the first of a series on conspiracy theories. It was shown the weekend before Lord Stevens publishes his report. How neatly it all hangs together. If the Diana conspiracy is classed as just one of a half a dozen daft theories swallowed by the gullible, it must soon be discredited with the rest.

This conspiracy, however, is not so easily dispatched. Diana herself claimed that there was a plot to kill her in a car crash less than a year before she died, and the method is a staple of security services the world over. My personal conspiracy theory stops short of suggesting who did it, but motive there surely was. By breaking free from the Royal Family and behaving as indiscreetly as she did, Diana was subverting the monarchy, and thus the state.

The establishment may have underestimated the threat to the social order from her untimely death, but what of the destabilising effect had she lived? With the hindsight of 10 years, it can be said that the standing of the Royal Family has benefited from the absence of Diana.

I do not generally favour conspiracy theories, preferring the cock-up school of history. I never blamed the US government for the Oklahoma bomb and divined no darker secret behind the planes that smashed into the World Trade Centre. I don't see Dr David Kelly's death as anything other than suicide. I don't even believe the Prime Minister lied about Iraq's lethal weapons; I fear he believed in every last tonne. Nor can I offer any explanation for the poisoning of the former spy, Alexander Litvinenko. I just do not think it was in Putin's interests to have ordered it.

Diana's death is different. There has been too much secrecy. Too many people have tried too hard to convince us we should not believe what we do believe for us to accept that it was only an accident. Which reminds me of something else I don't believe: that only one in three Britons shares this view.

m.dejevsky@ independent.co.uk