Diana’s bodyguard rejects murder allegations
‘Why has it taken so long to air this new information? … It’s a bit of a publicity stunt’
LONDON Former royal bodyguards spoke Sunday night of their shock at “mystifying” new claims that Britain’s Special Air Service had murdered Diana, Princess of Wales.
On instructions from the highest level, Scotland Yard detectives are examining allegations the British army’s elite special forces regiment was involved in Diana’s death in Paris nearly 16 years ago.
The claims came to light during the recent second court martial of Danny Nightingale, a former SAS sniper.
The allegations were made in a seven-page letter written by the parents of the estranged wife of “Soldier N,” a former member of the SAS who was a key prosecution witness at Nightingale’s trial.
In September 2011 they wrote to the regiment’s commanding officer, raising concerns about their son-in-law’s allegedly erratic and threatening behaviour.
The letter, which was censored before being released to the court martial, states: “He (Soldier N) also told her (the daughter) that it was the XXX who arranged Princess Diana’s death and that has been covered up. So what chance do my daughter and I stand against his threats?”
Ken Wharfe, Diana’s former bodyguard, questioned why it had taken so long for the allegations to be aired. He said: “The police have to look at it because of the level of the crime alleged. But if this was an allegation of a tinpot burglary a decade earlier, you would be lucky if a traffic warden would have looked at it.”
Former chief superintendent Dai Davies, police head of royal protection at the time Diana died, said an inquest and two police inquiries had proved her death was “an accident by any definition.”
The woman’s parents also wrote of how Soldier N had told their daughter he could make her “disappear” and described his “killing escapades” while deployed with the SAS, Channel 4 News reported. But Wharfe said the source of the claims of SAS involvement in Diana’s death raised questions about their truth.
“If these parents were so concerned that this information was relevant or had some general import, then they should have delivered it to the inquest,” he said.
“Why has it taken so long to air this new information? It seems so shallow to me. I just think it’s a bit of a publicity stunt. For what reason I’m not certain, but in the absence of any real evidence, I’m sure this will go away.”
The death of Diana in a car crash in a Paris underpass on Aug. 3 1997, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, has provoked widespread conspiracy theories.
In particular Mohammed Fayed, Dodi’s father, alleged that the crash had been orchestrated by MI6 at the behest of the Duke of Edinburgh to kill Diana so she would not marry her Muslim lover and bear his child.
Neither the French authorities nor the Metropolitan Police found any evidence to back up his claims.
Stevens, the former Scotland Yard commissioner, carried out a major investigation, code-named Operation Paget, into how Diana died.
In December 2006, he published his report, which found that she was not murdered by British spies or the Duke of Edinburgh, nor was she pregnant or engaged to Dodi Fayed.