Article

2006-12-08 Britain

LONDON (AP) - Preliminary hearings in the coroner's inquest into the 1997 death of Princess Diana and her friend Dodi Fayed will be open to the public, officials said Thursday.

The hearings were initially to be held in private, but Mohammed Al Fayed - the owner of Harrods department store and father of Dodi - protested and had asked for a judicial review of the decision by Lady Butler-Sloss, a former judge who is overseeing the inquest.
Weren't uniformed troops denied entry to Harrods?
On Thursday, Butler-Sloss "decided to reconsider," a spokesman for the Judicial Communications Office said. "She has discretion in the matter and was persuaded that the strong public interest in the cases justified the meeting being held in open court," he said on condition of anonymity, in line with government policy. "The reasons she had in mind that led her to conclude initially that the meeting should be held in private were entirely pragmatic, such as the size of the courtroom."

In a statement, Al Fayed declared victory, saying that his threatened challenge - which was to go to court Friday - was the reason Butler-Sloss changed her mind. "I am encouraged by this decision, although regret it only came about as a result of threatened legal proceedings," he said. "The public and I have a right to know how my son and Diana, Princess of Wales were really killed on that awful night."

The inquest, which was initially convened and then swiftly adjourned in 2004, is due to formally resume next year. The hearings on Jan. 8-9 at the Royal Courts of Justice will decide issues such as whether the inquest should be joint and if it should have a jury.

Diana, 36, and Dodi Fayed, 42, were killed along with chauffeur Henry Paul when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997, while being chased by media photographers.

Rumors and conspiracy theories continue to swirl around Diana's death, despite a French judge's 1999 ruling that the crash was an accident. An investigation later concluded that Paul had been drinking and was driving at high speed.

It is believed the official report into Diana's death will be published next week, although British police have refused to confirm that. The British inquiry, which is estimated to have cost as much as $7.2 million, employed cutting-edge computer technology to reconstruct the crash scene, and examined the Mercedes in painstaking detail.

Posted by .com 2006-12-08 02:23|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "The wheels of justice grind slowly, but exceeding fine."

Posted by phil_b 2006-12-08 02:43|| 2006-12-08 02:43|| Front Page Top

#2 All this money spent to take on yet another convergence of desert moonbats and moonbats of the domestic variety. This sort of farce only serves to confirm the idiots in their suspicions and to dignify the lies with attention that should have been sneered at. This scum should have been dragged off in irons for employing the drunk who was driving Diana. The men chasing her should have been lined up in that underpass and shot.

Posted by Excalibur 2006-12-08 09:20|| 2006-12-08 09:20|| Front Page Top

#3 I rank people who think that there was some conspiracy in the Diana Princess of Wales case with those who refuse to believe we landed on the moon.

The men chasing her should have been lined up in that underpass and shot.

Actually, it was all a terrible misunderstanding. The journos were merely following instructions that read:

"Follow closely and watch Princess Di...e."

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-12-08 13:05|| 2006-12-08 13:05|| Front Page Top

#4 And at the end of the day, she is still dead.
How about spending the resources to take back the diamond mine from Zim-Bob?

Posted by USN, Ret. 2006-12-08 14:37|| 2006-12-08 14:37|| Front Page Top

#5 However, the paparazzi sure make good scapegoats if the intriguing conspiracy theory that Dodi Fayed was the real target is seriously entertained, as he was supposedly enroute to meet arms dealer Khashnoggi that fateful night.

Posted by Danielle 2006-12-08 15:38|| 2006-12-08 15:38|| Front Page Top

#6 The chauffer
In the bag
Behind the wheel
Of the limo

Posted by tu3031 2006-12-08 15:46|| 2006-12-08 15:46|| Front Page Top

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