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Conspiracy theorists are again working overtime after new revelations concerning the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Reports out of Britain say U.S. secret service agents were eavesdropping on Diana's phone calls the night she died in a Paris car crash almost a decade ago. London's Observer newspaper claims the disclosure is among the findings from a new report by Metropolitan Police Chief John Stevens into Diana's death to be published on Thursday. The paper says the reason for the phone tapping remains a mystery and occurred without the knowledge of Britain's own MI-6 spy agency. | Hillary was afraid she was sleeping with Bill |
The Observer also reports the intelligence shed no light on Diana's fatal car crash in Paris the night of Aug. 31, 1997.
The 36-year-old princess, her friend, Dodi Fayed, 42 and driver Henri Paul, 41, died when the Mercedes Benz they were riding in crashed inside Paris' Pont d'Alma tunnel on Aug. 31, 1997. The car was being followed by media photographers.
While a French investigation concluded in 1999 that the death was an accident, and that Paul was drunk, conspiracy theories have since swirled around the deaths.
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Mohamed al Fayed, Dodi's father and the owner of the exclusive London store Harrods, has long insisted that Diana and his son were murdered in a plot by British secret services because their relationship was embarrassing the British royal household.
The long-awaited 400-page report by Lord Stevens, once Britain's top cop, is expected to put all conspiracy theories to rest.
Stevens' report is expected to reveal some tantalizing tidbits, including the bugging allegations. But if true, what reason would the U.S. have to bug the former wife of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne?
U.S. officials wouldn't comment on the report's expected accusations, but Ingrid Seward, the editor in chief of Majesty Magazine, told ABC news that Diana had "actually had put herself in a very high-profile political position. I think it probably would be odd if she wasn't being monitored."
Diana was an ardent campaigner for a ban on land mines, something that could possibly have caught the attention of "outside intelligence services," said Crispin Black, a former British government intelligence analyst. He added: "That doesn't mean it was something sinister."
Stevens' report is also expected to confirm claims that Diana's driver was an agent of French intelligence, the DST, according to the Observer, and that the service had paid Henri some US$3,600 for information earlier that evening. The British police have declined to comment on the allegation.
The newspaper said the report by Stevens also concludes that Paul was drunk at the time of the crash. And the BBC, quoting from a documentary it aired Sunday, said DNA tests confirm that blood samples from Henri Paul show that he had three times the French legal limit of alcohol in his blood at the time of the accident.
The report is also expected to claim that Diana was not pregnant, despite theories saying she was, and that she was not engaged to be married to Dodi Fayed.
Stevens' inquiry, code-named Operation Paget, cost US$5 million and was three years in the making. Investigators spoke to some 400 witnesses and friends. But Robert Jobson, royal correspondent for London's Evening Standard, told ABC that even after the report's release on Dec. 15, conspiracy theorists and skeptics still won't be silenced, and that "the people will say we want to ask more questions."
Meanwhile, a former judge presiding over the British inquest into Diana's death said this past week that preliminary hearings would be held in public and not in private, as had been planned, after a protest from Mohammed Fayed.
The inquest was convened and then swiftly adjourned in 2004. I will resume next year. Preliminary hearings will be held Jan. 8-9 at the Royal Courts of Justice. 
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