British police on Saturday said they were assessing new information about the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her friend Dodi al-Fayed in a Paris road crash in 1997.
London’s Metropolitan Police did not elaborate on the information, or its source, but Britain’s Sky news television station said it had come from the parents-in-law of a former soldier and had been passed on by the Royal Military Police.
Sky said it understood the new information included an allegation that the deaths of Diana, Dodi and their driver were caused by a member of the British military.
A royal spokeswoman said there would be no comment.
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that it was assessing the “relevance and credibility” of information into the deaths that it had recently received.
“This is not a re-investigation and does not come under Operation Paget,” it said, referring to an investigation by a former head of the Metropolitan police, John Stevens.
Diana, Dodi and their chauffeur were killed when their car crashed in a road tunnel while pursued by photographers after the couple left the Ritz hotel in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.
The untimely death of Diana, who divorced British heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles in 1996, sparked an outpouring of public grief that culminated in huge crowds lining the streets of London for her funeral.
Dodi’s father, Mohammed al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods department store, alleged that the couple had been killed on the orders of the British establishment.
Stevens concluded there was no evidence of murder and said that driver Paul had been drunk and going too fast.
A 2008 inquest in London returned a verdict of unlawful killing and said Paul and the photographers were to blame for the deaths.
Investigators in France have also dismissed allegations of murder and in 2008 Mohammed al-Fayed announced he was abandoning his 10-year campaign to prove the couple were killed, for the sake of Diana’s sons, William and Harry.
He said he had reservations about the outcome of the inquest, but had had enough: “I am leaving the rest for God to get my revenge.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique