Bilderberg.org

[TonyGosling]

Diana: Let the people decide
09Jan07 - By Padraic Flanagan
http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=1021

The Queen stepped into the row over the Princess Diana inquest yesterday, telling the royal coroner: “Let the people decide.”

The Daily Express has been a lone voice for years in crusading for such openness in establishing the truth.

The Queen’s lawyer told a judge it would be “undesirable and perhaps invidious” for an inquest jury to be made up of officers of the Royal Household – as rules governing the death of a princess dictate.

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, the retired judge in charge of the inquest, agreed. Lady Butler-Sloss said she must now decide whether to call a jury of the public or sit alone, saying: “I think it’s entirely inappropriate for me to ask for a jury from the Royal Household.”

Lady Butler-Sloss, the deputy royal coroner, announced that the full inquests into the death of Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed will be held together and in public at the beginning of May.

She took the decision to have the hearings together because it would be “unbelievably expensive, exhausting and upsetting” to hold separate inquests into the deaths.

This development is seen as a part victory for Dodi’s father, Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed, who has campaigned for a joint hearing and against a royal jury.

The preliminary hearing at the High Court in London yesterday was held almost three years after the inquest was officially opened and adjourned. It began with a plea from Prince William and Prince Harry that the proceedings should not be further dragged out.

They have endured endless speculation into the cause of their mother’s death in 1997.

Addressing the princes’ representative in court, Lady Butler-Sloss said they would be spared the ordeal of appearing in court.

“I would be very surprised if those you represent were expected to give evidence,” she said.

Earlier she read out a letter from Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the princes’ private secretary, which said the “inquest should not only be open, fair and transparent but that it should move swiftly to a conclusion”.

A letter from the Princess’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who was in court, was also read, saying that she shared the princes’ views.

A lawyer for Trevor Rees, the only survivor of the fatal car crash in Paris, backed that call.

“It’s very important indeed that this matter is brought to closure as quickly as possible for the sake of the victims,” said Ian Lucas.

The events surrounding the crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in the French capital on August 31 1997 have been the subject of extensive investigations on both sides of the Channel.

An 830-page report by Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, concluded that Diana, 36, and Dodi, 42, were killed in a tragic accident caused by a speeding drunk chauffeur.

The report, published last month, came after a two-year investigation by the French authorities which also blamed the driver, Henri Paul, who was killed instantly in the crash.

But Mr Fayed maintains Diana and his son were murdered in a plot by British intelligence services and has described the Lord Stevens investigation as “garbage” and a “cover-up”.

Lady Butler-Sloss said the role of the inquest was to establish answers to just four questions: The identity of the deceased, the place of death, the time of death and “how the deceased came by his death”.

She said the most important point on which she had to decide during the legal arguments, involving a battery of lawyers including representatives of the victims, employers and the Queen, was on whether there should be a jury.

Lady Butler-Sloss said: “I think that there is one decision I can make today. I think it’s entirely inappropriate for me to ask for a jury from the Royal Household.”

She reserved a decision on whether to have a public jury or to hear the case by herself. Her ruling is expected early next week.

A coroner, who can hold an inquest into bodies returned from abroad where death is sudden or unexplained, is compelled to empanel a jury of between seven and 11 members only where foul play is suspected.

The hearing heard how Diana was still technically regarded as a member of the Royal Family when she died, despite being stripped of her HRH title following her divorce from Prince Charles.

Her body lay in the chapel of St James’s Palace before her funeral, meaning that under current legislation – which is planned to be scrapped – any jury would normally have to be made up of senior members of the Royal Household. Sir John Nutting QC, representing the Queen, argued that the inquest should be heard by a jury made up of the public. Lawyers for Mr Fayed made the same argument.

In a written submission, Sir John said said if it was decided to have a jury, the public interest would be “best served” by choosing a panel of ordinary men and women to avoid any “appearance of bias”.

“Indeed, in the particular circumstances of this case the public interest, it is submitted, would be best served by avoiding the course of [summoning] a ‘royal’ jury to avoid any appearance of bias in consideration of the issues which such an inquest would be bound to consider,” his submission read.

Ian Burnett, the coroner’s own QC, said if the inquest were to be heard by a jury of members of the public, Lady Butler-Sloss would have to transfer the case to Surrey Coroner’s Court. If she were to do so, she would no longer run the inquest as deputy royal coroner but as the coroner of Surrey, he said.

He added that if Lady Butler-Sloss decided to sit without a jury she could choose whether she wanted to transfer the inquest or not. Lady Butler-Sloss said any jury would be faced with more than 40 witnesses, many of them French who will give evidence via interpreters on a video link from Paris.

She added that the report by French investigators was thought to amount to 15 volumes of evidence.

A further preliminary hearing will be held in March to discuss which witnesses to call and the scope of the inquest, she said.

There has been speculation that Prince Charles and Prince Philip may be called to give evidence at the full inquest.

Richard Keen QC, acting for Henri Paul’s parents, said the inquest must be held with a jury to quash a perception of bias tainting the proceedings.

He argued that Lady Butler-Sloss might appear in the public mind to be associated with the findings of the Lord Stevens report. Lady Butler-Sloss replied: “I supported the publication of the report but that doesn’t mean I support the conclusions.

“I am unable to do that because I haven’t heard the inquests. There is much in Lord Stevens’s report that is capable of challenge.”

Lord Stevens is expected to provide a coroner’s report by the end of the month, containing further information needed to hold the inquests.

Lady Butler-Sloss told the legal representatives that she intended to provide them with the documents when she received them.

Outside the hearing, a spokes-man for Mr Fayed described the hearing as a partial victory in the Harrods owner’s quest to uncover the truth behind the deaths of his son and Diana.

Before the hearing Mr Fayed said: “We should have a jury from ordinary people.” Spokesman Michael Cole said: “Clearly there have been some significant small steps forward but the remaining point is the overarching and crucial point of whether Lady Butler-Sloss will be hearing the inquests with a jury.

“We wouldn’t be here today without the monumental efforts of Mohamed Al Fayed over the last nine years, but the crucial matter is still unresolved and that’s whether she is going to hear the inquests with a jury. If she hears with a jury all the witnesses can be sworn, heard and cross-examined.

“Mohamed Al Fayed has great confidence that a jury of ordinary people would deliver what’s required and what’s necessary.

“It’s two small steps forward but still a monumental hurdle to clear.”

The next preliminary hearing will feature a demonstration of a computer simulation by Metropolitan Police experts who worked on the Stevens inquiry, two of whom will be present to give evidence.