Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Even nine years after her death, Princess Diana is still making headline news, particularly for one British newspaper that has repeatedly aimed to blow the lid on what it suggests is a state-sponsored conspiracy and cover-up.
In fact, in the 468 weeks since Diana was killed when her black Mercedes car crashed in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997, the Daily Express has made a tradition out of it.
Virtually every Monday morning, its editors have had a front-page story on why the crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel near the Eiffel Tower was no accident.
From poisons experts to spies in the morgue, death squads and laser beams that fatally distracted her chauffeur Henri Paul, "exclusive" has followed "exclusive" to constitute "new proof" of sinister forces at work.
Then, on May 6 this year, "Diana Death: Truth At Last", claiming the princess's body was illegally embalmed to cover up a pregnancy by her lover Dodi Al Fayed, who also died in the crash.
As the anniversary of the princess's death approached this week, the middle-market tabloid again treated its 835,000 daily readers to the latest instalment.
Officially, the inquiry has ended in France, while in Britain, the former head of Scotland Yard Sir John Stevens has repeatedly delayed the date for publishing his conclusions into the affair.
New witnesses and delays in obtaining the results of fresh scientific analysis are cited as the official cause.
The delay announced in May gave fresh impetus to conspiracy theorists, the most prominent of whom is Dodi Al Fayed's father, Mohammed, the Egyptian-born owner of the upmarket Harrods department store in west London.
Crowds still flock to the kitsch memorial that Al Fayed "pere" has set up, a sort of magic grotto in the style of London's Madame Tussaud's waxworks or its Paris equivalent the Musee Grevin, in Harrods' basement.
There, at the bottom of the central Egyptian escalator, are smiling pictures of Diana and Dodi in interlocking gold letter "Ds" and a wine glass from Fayed's Paris Ritz hotel that they used before their fateful last journey.
Also preserved under the acrylic pyramid among the candles, bronze fountain and Mediterranean plants -- a symbol of their last holiday together -- is an engagement ring Dodi allegedly bought for Diana just hours before their deaths.
Books dedicated to Diana's tragic demise also continue to appear.
The most recent -- "Diana, une mort annoncee" ("Diana, a death foretold") -- begins with the "unpublished testimony" of Rita Rogers, a clairvoyant who is alleged to have warned Dodi of a danger in the form of a black car.
In 444 pages, journalists Marc Roche and Nicholas Farrell list 115 elements to support their theory. Curiously, 444 is the unluckiest number in Chinese numerology because it is a premonition of death.
Television reconstructions have also appeared but none so far has concluded the crash was anything other than an accident.
Nine years after an event that shocked the world, those closest to the self-styled Princess of Hearts are still around.
Queen Elizabeth II is still on the throne, although a new film by director Stephen Frears, "The Queen", which premieres in London on September 22, alleges she thought of abdicating in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.
Diana's first husband, Prince Charles, has finally married Camilla, the woman with whom he continued to have an affair during the couple's marriage.
Meanwhile, Charles and Diana's eldest son and the future king, William, has grown up to strongly resemble his mother, not least in the way he holds his head and his coy smile.
The paparazzi, accused by the public of being "responsible" for hounding Diana to death, but never proved, have largely spared William and his younger brother Harry, except when they stumble out of nightclubs in the wee hours.
Instead, it is the young royals' female companions who have courted the attention of the popular press.
Between now and the 10th anniversary, the British inquiry should finish but until then, what's the betting on 52 more Monday morning "Diana" front pages of the Daily Express?
pl-phz/lc/mh
Britain-royal-Diana-anniversary
AFP 301238 GMT 08 06
COPYRIGHT 2006 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
