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.”
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS