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Diana And Dodi: Accident Or Assassination?
As the coroner's inquest investigating the 1997 deaths of princess Diana and her lover, Dodi Al Fayed, draws to a close, Di Webster examines the evidence that points to a tragic accident – and sensational claims the couple were victims of a sinister British secret service plot.
It was a scenario that Diana, Princess of Wales, would have never imagined: 11 jurors nodding earnestly as details of her menstrual cycle were heard at the inquest into her death and transmitted around the world. In the hunt for facts surrounding the August 31, 1997, Paris car crash that killed the princess, her lover, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, nothing was off the table. The inquest could only take place once French and British authorities had completed their own investigations – both of which found the causes of death to be accidental. But Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, is hoping evidence presented in London's Royal Courts of Justice over the past six months will prove otherwise. Here, we examine the evidence and rumours that continue to swirl around the events of that fateful night in Paris.
On October 2, 2007, the first day of the inquest, the jury was shown a photograph of Diana wearing a leopard-print swimsuit and displaying a clearly rounded stomach – often cited as evidence the princess was carrying Dodi's child. There's just one hitch: the picture was taken before they began a relationship.
Diana's long-time friend Rosa Monckton (one of a legion of people Al Fayed accuses of having links to MI6) rejected the possibility of a pregnancy with the revelation that, on a sailing holiday the pair took "just 10 days before she died", Diana had her period. Also, according to evidence presented by Deborah Gribble, a stewardess on the Al Fayed yacht Jonikal, Diana appears to have been taking the pill. Gribble, who was onboard during all three holidays taken by Diana and Dodi on the French Riviera while they were together, said she saw a strip of contraceptive pills when she was cleaning up the princess's cabin. "Yes," she replied in response to questioning. "I believe there were pills missing from the pack."
As well, Dr Robert Chapman, who performed the post-mortem on Diana in London on the evening she died, told the court her womb and ovaries showed no telltale signs of pregnancy. A thickening of the lining of the uterus wall, the presence of an embryonic sac and changes to the appearance of the ovaries could be visible as soon as three weeks after conception, he explained. "Were any of those indications present here?" asked Nicholas Hilliard, counsel for the inquest. "No," replied Dr Chapman.
That doctors didn't perform a definitive pregnancy check has long rankled with Al Fayed. With Diana in cardiac arrest and suffering massive internal bleeding from a ruptured blood vessel next to her heart, "I would have considered the fact of proceeding to an ultrasound scan a very hazardous loss of time," insisted Professor Bruno Riou, the French doctor who treated Diana at the Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital.
Al Fayed is having none of it. He claims that MI6, via the then British ambassador to Paris, Sir Michael Jay, ordered the embalming of Diana's body before it left the city to hide the results of any pregnancy test. But Dr Chapman noted that chemicals used in the embalming process would not hide the physical evidence of a pregnancy, if one existed.
But physiological explanations counted for nothing when Diana's stiffly coiffed stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, took the stand. The princess was raised in an "old-fashioned way", sniffed the countess. It would have been "out of the question for her" to allow herself to become pregnant outside of marriage. (Raine, a director of Al Fayed's Harrods International Ltd, is the daughter of the late romance novelist Barbara Cartland.)
Why, then, was Dodi down on one knee touching his girlfriend's stomach in his Paris apartment just hours before the crash? His former butler, Rene Delorm – "a bit of a gossip", according to Gribble – who claims to have witnessed the gesture, admitted he had "no idea", and that he only heard rumours of a pregnancy later. Earlier, revealed Delorm, Dodi had made a request: "He said, 'Rene, have some champagne ready because when we come back I'm going to propose to the princess.'"
Only one definitive fact has emerged from a barrage of speculation: Dodi did buy a ring. It was from the "Dis-Moi Oui" ("Tell Me Yes") range at Alberto Repossi's jewellery store near the Ritz Hotel in Paris. After Dodi visited the store on August 30, Claude Roulet, then assistant to the president of the Ritz, admitted he took a selection of jewels to Dodi's suite. He said Dodi selected a ring – described on the receipt for 115,000 French francs ($29,000) as an engagement ring – but made no mention to Roulet of a proposal.
Indeed, for an announcement with the potential for such huge repercussions, few outside the Al Fayed camp – not to mention those who were a part of it – appeared to be aware of any such plans. However, Diana's stepmother wouldn't have been surprised. "Diana was madly in love [with Dodi]," Countess Spencer told the court. "She said she had never been so happy for years. That was the moment I really felt it was highly likely that she and Dodi would get engaged and then get married."
For Countess Spencer, it would have been a romantic event. But for Diana's friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith, it would have been madness. Noting that the princess's Riviera romp with Dodi had been "splashed all over the papers", she asked the princess in their final phone call, "You are not doing anything silly like rushing off and eloping or getting married?" Diana replied, "Annabel, I need marriage like a rash on my face."
It's a line Diana also used with her butler, and the man she described as her "rock", Paul Burrell. Like Lady Goldsmith, Monckton and Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Burrell believes Diana's real love was Pakistan-born heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from whom she split the month before she died. "The princess said he [Khan] was her soul mate," Burrell declared to the court. "This was the man she loved more than any other." Burrell added that Diana had asked him "if it was possible to arrange a private marriage between her and Hasnat Khan".
Lady Goldsmith figured Diana was on the "rebound" with Dodi, and Monckton wrote him off as a "distraction". "It was clear to me that she was really missing Hasnat and I think Dodi was a distraction from the hurt she felt from the break-up of that relationship," stated Monckton.
"Rosa Monckton was working for MI6 and her brother is MI6," spat Al Fayed, adding that her testimony at the inquest was designed "to ridicule me and show that I am just hallucinating". Monckton denied her own connection to the agency, but did admit, "I believe that someone close to me is connected with the SIS [Secret Intelligence Service, which is also known as MI6]."
To read more about the conspiracy theories that surround Diana's death, including Mohammed Al Fayed's claim that she was a victim of assassination by MI6, see the May issue of marie claire.
It was a scenario that Diana, Princess of Wales, would have never imagined: 11 jurors nodding earnestly as details of her menstrual cycle were heard at the inquest into her death and transmitted around the world. In the hunt for facts surrounding the August 31, 1997, Paris car crash that killed the princess, her lover, Dodi Al Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, nothing was off the table. The inquest could only take place once French and British authorities had completed their own investigations – both of which found the causes of death to be accidental. But Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, is hoping evidence presented in London's Royal Courts of Justice over the past six months will prove otherwise. Here, we examine the evidence and rumours that continue to swirl around the events of that fateful night in Paris.
CONSPIRACY 1: DIANA WAS PREGNANT
"SHE WAS HAPPY. SHE SAID, 'I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU. I AM PREGNANT.' WHEN SHE WAS MURDERED, THEY TAKE HER GUTS OUT TO FALSIFY THE BODY" – AL FAYEDOn October 2, 2007, the first day of the inquest, the jury was shown a photograph of Diana wearing a leopard-print swimsuit and displaying a clearly rounded stomach – often cited as evidence the princess was carrying Dodi's child. There's just one hitch: the picture was taken before they began a relationship.
Diana's long-time friend Rosa Monckton (one of a legion of people Al Fayed accuses of having links to MI6) rejected the possibility of a pregnancy with the revelation that, on a sailing holiday the pair took "just 10 days before she died", Diana had her period. Also, according to evidence presented by Deborah Gribble, a stewardess on the Al Fayed yacht Jonikal, Diana appears to have been taking the pill. Gribble, who was onboard during all three holidays taken by Diana and Dodi on the French Riviera while they were together, said she saw a strip of contraceptive pills when she was cleaning up the princess's cabin. "Yes," she replied in response to questioning. "I believe there were pills missing from the pack."
As well, Dr Robert Chapman, who performed the post-mortem on Diana in London on the evening she died, told the court her womb and ovaries showed no telltale signs of pregnancy. A thickening of the lining of the uterus wall, the presence of an embryonic sac and changes to the appearance of the ovaries could be visible as soon as three weeks after conception, he explained. "Were any of those indications present here?" asked Nicholas Hilliard, counsel for the inquest. "No," replied Dr Chapman.
That doctors didn't perform a definitive pregnancy check has long rankled with Al Fayed. With Diana in cardiac arrest and suffering massive internal bleeding from a ruptured blood vessel next to her heart, "I would have considered the fact of proceeding to an ultrasound scan a very hazardous loss of time," insisted Professor Bruno Riou, the French doctor who treated Diana at the Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital.
Al Fayed is having none of it. He claims that MI6, via the then British ambassador to Paris, Sir Michael Jay, ordered the embalming of Diana's body before it left the city to hide the results of any pregnancy test. But Dr Chapman noted that chemicals used in the embalming process would not hide the physical evidence of a pregnancy, if one existed.
But physiological explanations counted for nothing when Diana's stiffly coiffed stepmother, Raine, Countess Spencer, took the stand. The princess was raised in an "old-fashioned way", sniffed the countess. It would have been "out of the question for her" to allow herself to become pregnant outside of marriage. (Raine, a director of Al Fayed's Harrods International Ltd, is the daughter of the late romance novelist Barbara Cartland.)
Why, then, was Dodi down on one knee touching his girlfriend's stomach in his Paris apartment just hours before the crash? His former butler, Rene Delorm – "a bit of a gossip", according to Gribble – who claims to have witnessed the gesture, admitted he had "no idea", and that he only heard rumours of a pregnancy later. Earlier, revealed Delorm, Dodi had made a request: "He said, 'Rene, have some champagne ready because when we come back I'm going to propose to the princess.'"
CONSPIRACY 2: DIANA AND DODI WERE ABOUT TO BECOME ENGAGED
"SHE TOLD ME ... DODI HAD BOUGHT THE RING AND THEY WERE GOING TO DECLARE THEIR ENGAGEMENT ON MONDAY" – AL FAYEDOnly one definitive fact has emerged from a barrage of speculation: Dodi did buy a ring. It was from the "Dis-Moi Oui" ("Tell Me Yes") range at Alberto Repossi's jewellery store near the Ritz Hotel in Paris. After Dodi visited the store on August 30, Claude Roulet, then assistant to the president of the Ritz, admitted he took a selection of jewels to Dodi's suite. He said Dodi selected a ring – described on the receipt for 115,000 French francs ($29,000) as an engagement ring – but made no mention to Roulet of a proposal.
Indeed, for an announcement with the potential for such huge repercussions, few outside the Al Fayed camp – not to mention those who were a part of it – appeared to be aware of any such plans. However, Diana's stepmother wouldn't have been surprised. "Diana was madly in love [with Dodi]," Countess Spencer told the court. "She said she had never been so happy for years. That was the moment I really felt it was highly likely that she and Dodi would get engaged and then get married."
For Countess Spencer, it would have been a romantic event. But for Diana's friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith, it would have been madness. Noting that the princess's Riviera romp with Dodi had been "splashed all over the papers", she asked the princess in their final phone call, "You are not doing anything silly like rushing off and eloping or getting married?" Diana replied, "Annabel, I need marriage like a rash on my face."
It's a line Diana also used with her butler, and the man she described as her "rock", Paul Burrell. Like Lady Goldsmith, Monckton and Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Burrell believes Diana's real love was Pakistan-born heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from whom she split the month before she died. "The princess said he [Khan] was her soul mate," Burrell declared to the court. "This was the man she loved more than any other." Burrell added that Diana had asked him "if it was possible to arrange a private marriage between her and Hasnat Khan".
Lady Goldsmith figured Diana was on the "rebound" with Dodi, and Monckton wrote him off as a "distraction". "It was clear to me that she was really missing Hasnat and I think Dodi was a distraction from the hurt she felt from the break-up of that relationship," stated Monckton.
"Rosa Monckton was working for MI6 and her brother is MI6," spat Al Fayed, adding that her testimony at the inquest was designed "to ridicule me and show that I am just hallucinating". Monckton denied her own connection to the agency, but did admit, "I believe that someone close to me is connected with the SIS [Secret Intelligence Service, which is also known as MI6]."
To read more about the conspiracy theories that surround Diana's death, including Mohammed Al Fayed's claim that she was a victim of assassination by MI6, see the May issue of marie claire.
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