LONDON: Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi El-Fayed were murdered, his father told a formal inquest Monday, claiming she had voiced fears that senior royals were trying to get rid of her.
Testifying for the first time at the coroner s inquest into the couple s death, Mohamed El-Fayed pointed the finger firmly at Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II s husband Prince Philip, whom he described as a Nazi and a racist.
It s time to send him back to Germany from where he comes, El-Fayed said at London s High Court. You want to know his original name? It ends with Frankenstein, he added.
Prince Philip was born Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark in Corfu and educated in England, Germany and Scotland. He renounced his Greek and Danish titles and converted to Anglicanism on marrying the future queen in 1947.
El-Fayed said he would make no allegations during his evidence but simply state his belief that Diana and Dodi were murdered.
She told me that she knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her, he added.
The inquest into Diana and Dodi Fayed s death in a Paris car crash started in October and was expected to last six months. It has heard from a huge number of witnesses, as well as royal aides.
El-Fayed, owner of the posh London department store Harrods, claims that a plot was behind the couple s deaths in the Alma road tunnel on the night of Aug. 30, 1997, to avoid embarrassing the royals by Diana marrying a Muslim.
In court Monday, he reiterated his claim that Diana was pregnant and that she and Dodi were about to announce their engagement.
Diana told me on the telephone that she was pregnant. I m the only person they told, he said. They told me they were engaged and would announce their engagement on Monday morning.
She would speak to her sons when she returned from Paris.
Asked to provide evidence, he said: You want me to get the proof but I am facing a steel wall from the security services. I have been fighting for 10 years to be where we are. El-Fayed also alleged that Robert Fellowes, princess Diana s brother-in-law and the Queen s private secretary at the time, was at the British Embassy in Paris before the crash, and used the building s communications center to contact GCHQ, the government s listening outpost.
Asked by Ian Burnett, counsel for the coroner, whether he was suggesting that Fellowes was busy coordinating the plot on behalf of Prince Philip, El-Fayed replied: Yes.
He renewed a claim that blood tests showing driver Henri Paul to be over the drink-drive limit had been falsified, and that a paparazzi photographer had caused the crash by ramming their car with a white Fiat.
The blood had been taken from someone in the mortuary who had been breathing carbon monoxide by the pathologist who refused to appear because they know their arguments are false and it s baloney and it s not facts, he said.
There was one paparazzi member in the pay of the security services … who exacted the murder in his own Fiat, pushed the car and a strobe light having been used to blind (chauffeur) Henri Paul, he said.
The photographer, James Andanson, had since died in suspicious circumstances, he said.
But doubts about this theory have been repeatedly raised, including by Diana s former butler, Paul Burrell, who said in evidence it was impossible that she was murdered on the orders of the royal family.
That view was also voiced by former Scotland Yard police chief Lord John Stevens, who headed an inquiry which in December 2006 concluded that the crash was a tragic accident caused by Paul driving at excessive speed while drunk.
A previous French police probe had also concluded it was an accident, fueled by the fact that Paul was over the legal drink-drive limit.
El-Fayed also claimed that former premier Tony Blair was implicated in the plot to murder Diana: a letter he wrote in February 2006 referred to the prime minister and his henchman as being involved in the conspiracy.
When asked about the list of conspirators, those who are involved in this, we can add Tony Blair to this list? he replied: You can.
