BRITISH CENSORSHIP

Prince Philip

Under questioning Mr. al-Fayed reiterated that he was in "no doubt" that Diana and Dodi were murdered by UK security services on the order of Prince Philip.

He declared: "It´s well known he is a racist. He´ll not accept my son as a person who is different religion, naturally tanned, curly hair. They´ll not accept he´ll have anything to do with the future king." He did not think that the Queen was involved.

But he added: "Prince Philip is the actual head of the Royal Family. He was brought
up by his auntie who married Hitler´s general. Would someone growing up with Nazis accept my son? No way. Time to send him back to Germany or where he comes from."

Then he continued: ""You want his original name? It ends with >Frankenstein<."

Prince Charles

Insisting Charles wanted Diana out of the way so he could marry Camilla, Mr. al Fayed said: "He knows what is going to happen because he´d like to marry his Camilla."

Then he added: "They cleared the decks, they finished her, they murdered her. And now he is happy. He married his crocodile wife."

The Princess

When the questioning moved on Mr. al Fayed claimed that Diana told him before and during the holiday they shared in July 1997 of her fears for her safety. He said: "She told me she knew Prince Philip and Prince Charles were trying to get rid of her."

He also asserted: "She suffered for twenty years this Dracula family."CENSORED
Diana coroner in contempt warning

7 hours ago
The inquest on Thursday was hearing evidence from the widow and son of a paparazzi photographer, James Andanson.

He had taken pictures of the princess before the crash that killed her and Fayed in Paris.

Andanson was found dead in a burnt-out car in 2000.

The inquest continues.

CENSORED


The coroner in charge of the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and her lover Dodi Fayed has issued a warning to anyone commenting on the value of the hearing.

International interest and demands for the hearing to be shut down spiked this week with evidence from Mohamed al Fayed and former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove.

Lord Justice Scott Baker told the central London court: "These inquests which are an inquiry into two deaths and are being heard by a jury ... They will continue to be heard by a jury on evidence they hear in this court and nothing else. Comments made outside this court, often about a limited aspect of the evidence, may tender the maker or publisher liable to contempt of court."

He went on: "I again urge great care that nothing is said, written or published that may influence the jury."

Michael Mansfield QC, for Mohamed al Fayed, asked the Coroner to explain the "parameters and legal necessity" for the inquests.

He also noted that it is now widely-known that Diana had fears for her safety.

The inquest has heard Diana's friends discuss her private life in detail.

Earlier this week Mr al Fayed told the jury his son was "slaughtered" by MI6 on Prince Philip's orders because she pregnant with Dodi's child and the couple were about to get engaged. Driver Henri Paul was also killed in the Paris car crash in August 1997.



Why does Mohamed Al Fayed get such stick?

Thursday, 21 February 2008

How the great and good of the British establishment must be rejoicing – discreetly sheltered by their castle walls and stucco facades. They finally granted Mohamed Al Fayed his yearned-for day in court, and now the whole Diana conspiracy has evaporated in the steam of his own overheated rhetoric. That's what we call fair play, old chaps, fair play.

But it is not fair play at all, is it? All right, so Mr Al Fayed appears to have been treated with due deference inside the court, as the bereaved father he will remain for the rest of his days. As a key witness and man of material substance, he might have hoped for gentler handling, but even the most hostile questions never went beyond the pale. Dodi's father was allowed his dignity. There is still such a thing as courtroom etiquette, and far be it from the establishment to breach it.

Outside the court, it was another matter. The media coverage was merciless. Front pages hurled invective. Yet most merely reproduced Mr Al Fayed's own colourful expressions. There was no need to embellish, still less ridicule. The owner of Harrods had done it all himself.

So much for the headlines. The accompanying reports dripped with innuendo. There was race – who was this man, it was implied, to speak of our Royal Family as "Draculas" who would never accept his son? Silent answer: an Arab with the excitability that belongs to that alien part of the world. And there was class: in all the references to the billions Al Fayed spent lurked disdain for a shopkeeper made good. Oh, and he wasn't quite dressed for the occasion; the wrong sort of check, you know. At once condescending and contemptuous, the reports let us know that this Al Fayed character, whoever he was, was definitely, positively, not "one of us".

Could such negative – no, insulting – coverage have been predicted? Of course. It was no more surprising than The Sun headline, "45 Minutes from Doom" that followed publication of the dossier stating the time within which Saddam Hussein could deploy his non-existent weapons. Once you know how the relevant sections of the popular press work, you can play them like the proverbial violin.

In giving Mohamed Al Fayed his day in court, the establishment took the most negligible of risks. Short of failing to turn up or answering in curt monosyllables, there was nothing Mr Al Fayed could do to escape the trap. Too emotional? Too un-British? Too... er, common? You almost wonder why, if it was going to be so easy to damn his credibility with his own words, he wasn't invited to the witness box a decade earlier.

Those of us who still suspect that more lies behind Diana's death than an irresponsible French driver, were dismissed as fantasists, who now had to believe what the establishment had told them. Because Al Fayed was emotional and hyperbolic, every aspect of his story was judged unworthy of consideration; he was speaking cock and bull.

Yet the one does not follow from the other. How many times do you have to say this: here is a father, bereft of his elder son. You can argue, if you like, that he has money and interests sufficient to absorb his sorrows – unlike fond fathers of lesser means. You can criticise his son's lifestyle: to put no finer point on it, Dodi was a playboy; one hopes Diana knew the life she was getting herself into. You may have views on Mohamed Al Fayed's character or his merits as a businessman.

That he may not have presented his case in the most convincing way for an audience more attuned to understatement, however, does not mean that his belief in a conspiracy is discredited. There are old questions that remain unanswered: that white Fiat Uno; the French paparazzo found later with his throat cut; the contradictory accounts of the chauffeur's drinking habits; Diana's fears that she would die in an arranged car accident; and the presence of an MI6 team in Paris on the fateful weekend.

And there are new questions that have been raised by this inquest: not least why witnesses at the scene who volunteered their accounts were not properly interviewed at the time. It is also curious that the Metropolitan Police failed to come clean about Diana's written fears for her life after she died. You might also add the claim that the secret services experimented with dazzling lights for the purpose of causing road accidents. But that came from a supposedly discredited former agent, so it can't possibly be true – can it?

As the Diana inquest lumbers on, Mohamed Al Fayed's testimony is being held up as proof that the whole exercise was ill-conceived and futile. It is a classic case of allowing the messenger to obscure the message. I wonder in whose interests that might be?

m.dejevsky