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"DIANA LETTER SENSATION: 'THEY WILL TRY TO KILL ME'"
Oct 20 2003

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By Jane Kerr, Royal reporter

PRINCESS DIANA claimed there was a plot to kill her in a car crash in a handwritten letter only 10 months before she died.  She gave it to her butler Paul Burrell with orders that he should keep it as "insurance" for the future.

The princess predicted: "This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous." She said "XXXXXXXXXXX is planning `an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry".

In the letter, revealed by the Daily Mirror today, Diana named who she believed was plotting to kill her.  But the Mirror is not able to repeat the allegation for legal reasons so we have blanked that part of the letter out.

The document will fuel the conspiracy theories which have raged in the six years since she was killed in a Paris car crash.

But it also appears to bring fresh importance to a warning by the Queen that there were "powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge".

The Queen was speaking to Burrell at Buckingham Palace in a meeting that would prove crucial in the collapse of his trial for theft.

Now, plagued by that meeting and deeply troubled that there has still been no inquest in Britain into the death of Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, Burrell has come forward with the stunning new evidence.

In his new book A Royal Duty the former servant ~ cleared last year of stealing Diana's possessions ~ claims she began to worry about her security TWO YEARS before her death and that this led her to record her fears in the document.

Before sealing the letter in an envelope marked "Paul", the princess told him: "I'm going to date this and I want you to keep it ... just in case."

In the second paragraph of the document, written in October 1996, Diana explained in the plainest possible language that she was convinced of the plot to mastermind an accident.

Burrell describes in his book the events that led the princess to write the document at her desk in Kensington Palace.

Diana's divorce from Prince Charles had been finalised less than two months earlier.

The princess, who had cut down on her charities to focus on Aids, leprosy and victims of homelessness, was enjoying huge public support.

But according to Burrell, by the autumn of 1996 she had "an
overpowering feeling that she was `in the way'."

He adds:  "Rightly or wrongly she felt the stronger she became, the more she was regarded as a modernising nuisance.

"She certainly felt that `the system' didn't appreciate her work and that for as long as she was on the scene Prince Charles could never properly move on."

Burrell says the princess told him:  "I have become strong and they don't like it when I am able to do good and stand on my own two feet without them."

THE princess's anxiety deepened to such an extent that she ordered a sweep of her apartments at Kensington Palace for listening devices.

By October 1996 she once again confided in Burrell that she believed there was a concerted attempt to undermine her in the public's eyes.

She recalled that she had been brooding about Charles's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles and the continuing role of Tiggy Legge Bourke, nanny to Princes William and Harry, in the Royal Household.

Burrell says the princess was feeling "undervalued and
unappreciated".  But at the root of her fears she said she was
constantly puzzled" by attempts by Prince Charles's supporters to "destroy her".

With these thoughts and fears in her head, Diana decided to put her fears to paper, says Burrell.

The letter betrays the loneliness Diana was feeling:  "I am sitting here at my desk today in October, longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high."  According to Burrell it was not the first time Diana had felt it necessary to record what was happening to her.  He said: I became the repository for royal truths.

"These notes are her legacy and are crucial to the truths that
enshrine her memory and debunk the damaging myths that seem to have been peddled since the day she died."

Diana and Dodi Fayed were killed in the early hours of August 31 1997 when a Mercedes S280 driven by drunken chauffeur Henri Paul careered into the Pont d'Alma tunnel in the French capital.

An inquiry in 1999 by the French authorities blamed Paul, concluding that he had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs before losing control of the car because he was speeding.

However, there has been a growing unwillingness by the public to accept the official version of her death.

BURRELL admitted he shares the doubts. He said:  "With the benefit of hindsight, the content of that letter has bothered me since her death."

It will strike a chord among people who remain puzzled by
inconsistencies in her death, including questions over a mysterious white Fiat Uno which grazed the Mercedes in the tunnel and over blood samples taken from Henri Paul.

Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, has spent tens of thousands of pounds on a private investigation, convinced that Diana and Dodi were murdered by British security services at the behest of Establishment forces.

But Diana's family refuse to believe the theories.  Her mother Frances Shand Kydd accepted the findings of the French inquiry "without reservation".

Diana's brother Earl Spencer also said he was satisfied that the authorities had "reached the right conclusion".

Hopes that some of the mysteries would be unravelled were dashed last month.

A spokesman for the royal coroner Michael Burgess said the date for an inquest on Diana would be announced within days.

But hours later Mr Burgess ordered the statement to be withdrawn, saying it was premature" to suggest a date and refusing to give a timescale.

The lack of an inquest and his prosecution for theft in 2002 steeled Burrell's determination to make public the princess's concerns for her security.

"That letter has been part of the burden I have carried since the princess's death. Knowing what to do with it has been a source of much soul~searching."

He insists that whether it is a wild coincidence" or an explanation for the tragedy is a matter for a coroner's court.

He adds: "It may be futile in what it achieves because it can do no more than provide yet another question mark.

"But if that question mark leads to an inquest and a thorough investigation of the facts by the British authorities it will have achieved something."

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DIANA: CRUEL CHARLES PUT ME THROUGH HELL
Oct 20 2003

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By Jane Kerr, Royal Reporter

THE collapse of Diana's marriage left her feeling she had been  "battered, bruised and abused mentally" for 15 years by the Palace.

For the first time, her private thoughts straight after her divorce are revealed in the explosive letter to Paul Burrell , in which she targets Prince Charles and "a system" she says nearly destroyed her.

Charles, Diana wrote, put her "through such hell" with the "cruel things" he had done to her.

ANGUISH: The troubled princess reveals her innermost thoughts about those she regards as "enemies" in Buckingham Palace immediately after her divorce from husband Charles

And she admitted she had "cried more than anyone will ever know" during those dark days.

At one point, as Diana struggles explain her concerns, she says: "I am weary of the battles, but I will never surrender.

"I am strong inside and maybe that a problem for my enemies."

Each paragraph of the note, written less than two months after the finalisation of the divorce she never wanted, is filled with undisguised pain.

Diana says: "I have been battered, bruised and abused mentally by a system for 15 years now."

But the letter is also a testament her strength in the face of such opposition, a characteristic which earned her worldwide praise.

Despite the abuse she says she suffered by the "system", a reference her Palace enemies and the traditions that surround the Royal Family, she adds:  "I feel no resentment, I carry no hatred."

And the princess even seems to say she has emerged stronger from her experiences.  Diana adds:  "Thank you, Charles, for putting me through such hell and for giving me the opportunity to learn from the cruel things you have done to me.  I have gone forward fast.

"The anguish nearly killed me, but my inner strength has never let me down, and my guides have taken such good care of me up there.

"Aren't I fortunate to have had their wings to protect me.." Ten months later, however, Diana was dead.

Burrell insists her bitter recordings were not the final chapter in her relationship with Charles. Later, she would write of her enduring love for her ex~husband, sending him Valentine cards long after their separation and wanting to become "Charles's best friend".

She once said: "A part of me will always love Charles."

The letter instead records her thoughts after she had spent hours analysing why her marriage had failed.  Contrary to a widely~held belief, Diana's former butler says the prince and princess were happy in the early years of their marriage.

Their wedding on 29 July 1981 was packaged both by the Palace and the media as a fairytale.

BUT it would end 15 years later surrounded by scandal, extra~marital affairs and bitter accusations.

The event that pushed the couple towards separation in December 1992 came with the publication of "Diana, Her True Story".

Hurt by Charles's relationship with mother~of~two Camilla Parker Bowles and frustrated he wouldn't discuss their problems, the princess was accused of co~operating with author Andrew Morton.

The couple's differences were exposed during their tour of South Korea in 1992 shortly before they split.

But the most embarrassing episode in the scandal was yet to come ~ Squidgygate.  Two tapes recorded by amateur radio hams, on New Year's Eve 1989, surfaced three years later in a newspaper under the headline "My life is just torture".

They revealed a chat between Diana and a mystery admirer, believed to be James Gilbey.

Charles's supporters urged him to retaliate by working with
broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby on a biography.

And in a TV documentary to accompany publication of the book the prince finally admitted his adultery with Camilla. The death knell of the marriage was sounded in 1995 when Diana agreed to be interviewed by Martin Bashir.

She discussed her eating disorders, her so~called Palace enemies and Charles's relationship with Camilla.

Diana admitted to an affair with army officer James Hewitt and cast doubts on Charles's fitness to be king.

The princess would later describe the divorce as marking
the "saddest day in my life".  The marriage ended in August 1996. It is against this setting that Diana sat down at her desk two months later to jot down her inner thoughts.

She refers to the strength she found after dropping more than 100 of her charities to concentrate on particular issues she cared about.

She chose to keep her links with the Leprosy Mission, Centrepoint, the National Aids Trust, the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and the English National Ballet.

When she wrote the Burrell letter, Diana was carving out a
humanitarian career.

Behind the scenes, she was also telling friends of her plans to
remarry now she was free of the House of Windsor.

Diana was falling in love with heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, who she met in London the previous year.

PAUL Burrell's unique position in Diana's life makes him unrivalled as a chronicler of her fascinating past.

He was her close confidant for 12 years, which included her most dramatic and turbulent times.

He worked for both Diana and Charles in the years immediately after their marriage and was there to watch its disintegration and the despair the break up caused.

The princess retained Burrell's services after the couple split and brought him to Kensington Palace where she lived after her separation.

Her time here was marked by an ongoing struggle against what she viewed as her enemies within the establishment and Charles's "camp" who she blamed for driving the couple apart.

Burrell was witness to her struggle to cope, her fight and,
ultimately, her defiance in the face of incredible pressure.

But more than that, her former butler was treated as a friend, a sounding board and a trusted ally during the most fascinating period in royal history.

~~~~

ROYAL WARNED DI: YOU ARE BEING SPIED ON
Oct 20 2003

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By Jane Kerr

PAUL Burrell''s sensational book A Royal Duty tells the real story of life with Diana, Princess of Wales.

He reveals for the first time how she really felt about the Royal Family and the end of her marriage to Prince Charles.

In this extract he tells of the princess's increasing concern that she had made powerful enemies and how she was convinced 'they' were determined to spy on her and control her movements.

EVER since the end of my trial when I first detailed that meeting with the Queen, there has been much speculation, and again scoffing, over the tone and meaning of the "be careful" message from Her Majesty.

So, what did she mean? All I know is what I heard. It wasn't
quantified or expanded upon, neither was it melodramatically delivered. I walked away and accepted what had been said as it had
been intended ~ as sound advice to be vigilant.

In my opinion, she was telling me to be careful of everyone because no one more than the Queen understood the position in which I found myself, and the closeness I had shared with the princess.

The reference to the "powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge" has often played on my mind in the intervening years and, yes, I have worried about it too.

The Queen might have been referring to the power base of media barons and editors who can topple individuals from their pedestals.

She might have been referring to that unknown quantity called "the Establishment", an undefined, invisible network of interlocking social circles of the great and the good. She might have been referring to the domestic intelligence service MI5 because, have no doubt, the Queen does not know of its secret work and darker practices but she is aware of the power it is capable of wielding.

Like the royal household, the intelligence services are given carte blanche to act in whatever way is considered to be in the best interests of state and monarchy.

ALL I do know is that within four years of Her Majesty's warning I was arrested and sent to trial for a crime I never committed in a case that barely had the legs to stand up.  All the time, the undercurrents running beneath the surface of that case were about the secrets of the princess.  Who had them?  Where were they?

But, in all honesty, I cannot pinpoint what the Queen was referring to.  I have beaten myself up mentally many times over why I didn't ask her at the time what she meant.  I, like you, can only speculate.

No one is more aware than I of the knowledge locked away inside my head. In choosing to impart certain information to me, the princess ensured I shared a historic knowledge.

I was her independent witness to history, in the same way that I was her witness to the letters she wrote and received, the divorce papers she handled and the will she made. She also shared with me her concern that she was constantly monitored.

It is naive of anyone to think that the princess, from the moment she married Prince Charles, would not have had her telephone calls bugged, or that the associations she made were not checked.

It is a matter of routine that members of government and the Royal Family are monitored.

She knew that.  So, in that regard, "the powers" were discreetly at work in all my years at Highgrove and Kensington Palace. She made me constantly aware of it, and the need to be vigilant.

If there was one thing about life at KP the princess loathed it was the inescapable feeling of constantly being listened to or watched.

It was one of the reasons why she shed her police protection. She didn't trust the police as tools of the state.  In fact, she had a deep~seated suspicion about anything and everything to do with the state.

When both of us were away from the palace, she even suspected that listening devices had been planted in apartments 8 and 9.

ONCE, both of us moved all the furniture to one side in her sitting room and rolled up an Aztec~style rug, the blue fitted carpet and its underlay.

Then, we prised up the floorboards with screwdrivers. She was convinced there were listening devices in the palace but we found nothing.

She worried about devices being placed in plug sockets, light
switches or lamps. Some will dismiss this kind of worrying as
outright paranoia. If such worries were in isolation and devoid of rational reasoning, I would tend to agree. But the critics who were far too eager to dismiss her as paranoid didn't realise she had good reason to be concerned.

She was being cautious, not paranoid, because she was acting on sound information received from someone who had worked for the British intelligence services; a man whose expertise, advice and friendship the princess came to rely on.

Even another member of the Royal Family warned the princess:  "You need to be discreet, even in your own home, because `they' are listening all the time."

(Before my trial at the Old Bailey in 2002, I witnessed, with my legal team, documented evidence that my telephone lines, during the course of the police inquiry, had been intercepted" without my knowledge and at least 20 telephone numbers had been monitored.)

Armed with such advice, I defy anyone in the princess's position not to go on the hunt for devices.

When she found none, she called on the help of her ex~intelligence services friend.

One weekend afternoon, he visited the palace, using a pseudonym.  He carried out a sweep of the apartments to detect listening devices.  Every room was checked.  Nothing was found.

Then, in demonstration after demonstration, the princess and I were given a sharp lesson in hi~tech surveillance techniques.

But what startled the princess most was to learn that "monitoring" did not necessarily require devices to be planted in a household.

So hi~tech were the intelligence facilities that a conversation
could be listened to from a surveillance van parked outside,
transmitting a signal into the building and using mirrors to bounce it back.

As a result, she took down the round convex mirror that hung above the marble fireplace opposite the window in the sitting room.  She was not paranoid:  she was being advised.

In the final two years of her life, the princess grew increasingly concerned about the security around her.  Ever since the separation in 1992, she felt she had grown in stature, and she was ready to take on the world in her humanitarian mission.

But, rightly or wrongly, she felt the stronger she became, the more she was regarded as a modernising nuisance who was prepared to go out on a limb and do the unconventional.

She was later to be proved right, to some degree, when her
humanitarian work in Angola in early 1997 led to suggestions that she was a "loose cannon" who was doing more harm than good.

In the autumn of 1996, she had an overpowering feeling she was "in the way".  She certainly felt that "the system" didn't appreciate her work and that, for as long as she was on the scene, Prince Charles could never properly move on.  "I have become strong, and they don't like it when I am able to do good and stand on my own two feet without them," she said.

IN one particular period of anxiety, in October 1996, the princess called me from my pantry.  I met her half~way down the stairs.

A question of self~doubt led to reassurance from me, and one more question led to us sitting on the stairs and talking through her concerns.

She felt there was a concerted attempt by what she referred to as the "anti~Diana brigade" to undermine her in the public's eyes.  We spoke about the continuing role of Tiggy Legge~Bourke.  We spoke about Camilla Parker Bowles and whether Charles really loved her.  Inevitably, we spoke about how the princess felt undervalued and unappreciated.  But the basis of the conversation seemed to be her worries about what the future held.

She said she was "constantly puzzled" by the attempts of Prince Charles's sympathisers to "destroy me".  It was a "down day", and the princess needed to talk.

With all sorts of jumbled thoughts racing through her mind, we went into the sitting room to write it all down and then make sense of it.

Again, the pen put her thoughts into some form of therapeutic order.

As the princess sat at her desk sat on the sofa, watching her
scribble furiously.  "I'm going to date this and want you to keep it… just in case," she said.  For she had another reason to write down her thoughts and present them to me that day.  She was, rationally or irrationally, worried about her safety and it was preying on her mind.

She wrote down what she was thinking but didn't articulate her justification for doing so.  I think she would have felt silly, or perhaps embarrassed.  She just wanted to put it down.  It was, in a way, her insurance for the future.

When she finished the letter, she popped it into an envelope
addressed to "Paul", sealed it and handed it to me.  I read it the next day at home, and thought nothing of it.  It wasn't the first time, or the last, that she would express, verbally or in writing, such concerns to me.

But, with the benefit of hindsight, the content of that letter has bothered me since her death.  For this is what she wrote 10 months before she died in that car crash in Paris:

"I am sitting here at my desk today in October, longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high.  This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous.  (The princess then identified where she felt the threat and danger would come from) ... is planning "an accident" in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry.

I have been battered, bruised and abused mentally by a system for years now, but I feel no resentment, I carry no hatred.  I am weary of the battles, but I will never surrender. am strong inside and maybe that a problem for my enemies.

Thank you Charles, for putting me through such hell and for giving me the opportunity to learn from the cruel things you have done to me.

I have gone forward fast and have cried more than anyone will ever know.

The anguish nearly killed me, but my inner strength has never let me down, and my guides have taken such good care of me up there.

Aren't I fortunate to have had their wings to protect me..."

That letter has been part of the burden I have carried since the princess's death.  Deciding what to do with it has been a source of much soul~searching.

All I can say is, imagine if that letter had been penned to you by loved one and then, within the next year, they died in a car crash.  In trying to make sense of it, you tend to waver from considering it a wild coincidence to more bizarre, paranoid explanations.

I had hoped that the matter would be put to rest by an inquest into the princess's death ~ a full examination by a coroner and court in the UK of the events of 31 August 1997. But, for some inexplicable reason, there has not been an inquest.   If it were anyone else, an inquest would have had to be held and yet that essential, inquisitorial process has been pushed to one side.

In the late summer of 2003, it was announced that an inquest was being planned in Surrey to examine the circumstances, primarily, of the death of Dodi Al Fayed.  It was unclear whether that hearing's scope would include the death of the princess.

Whatever the situation, the lack of an inquest to date, and the attempt by Scotland Yard and the CPS to destroy my reputation with my Old Bailey trial in 2002, has led me to make the contents of that note public.  I agree that it may be futile in what it achieves because it can do no more than provide yet another question mark.

But if that question mark leads to an inquest, and a thorough examination of the facts by the British authorities, it will have achieved something.  Perhaps there is a desire to allow the matter of British inquest to go away, but that cannot be allowed to happen.

~~~~

I JUST LONG TO HUG MY MOTHER~IN~LAW
Oct 20 2003

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

By Jane Kerr

PRINCESS Diana left behind a powerful tribute to the Queen, revealing that she had "longed to hug her mother~in~law".

Her letter gives a revealing insight into the relationship between the two women and puts to rest any suggestion that Diana died without making her peace with the monarch.

Pouring out her affection, Diana said:  "I just long to hug my mother~in~law, and tell her how deeply I understand what goes on inside her."

Crucially, in the light of Diana's harsh indictment of her former husband's suitability for the throne during her Panorama interview, the princess added:  "I so want the monarchy to survive and realise the changes that will take to put 'the show' on a new and healthy track."

Setting out her vision for the future, she said:  "I, too, understand the fear the family have about change but we must, in order to reassure the public, as their indifference concerns me and should not be."

She concludes:  "I will fight for justice, for my children and the monarchy..."

Defending his decision to make the princess's letter public, Paul Burrell says it is an attempt to counter the vengeful attack on the Queen in Earl Spencer's speech at her funeral.

The ex~butler remains bitter that Diana's brother wrongly created the impression that she blamed the Royal Family for her feelings of isolation.  The princess, he believes, would have taken the mourners in a different direction.

In his book, A Royal Duty, Burrell says:  "The cause of her suffering and misery was Prince Charles, but she harboured no hatred towards her ex~husband or his parents.

"Indeed, if the princess could have spoken up that week, she would have defended the princess, he believes, would have taken the mourners in a different direction.

In his book, A Royal Duty, Burrell says:  "The cause of her suffering and misery was Prince Charles, but she harboured no hatred towards her ex~husband or his parents.

"Indeed, if the princess could have spoken up that week, she would have defended the Windsors."  Earl Spencer's speech was "wrong and inappropriate", Burrell said, adding:  "Had he known his sister, he would have know the truth."

And Burrell went on:  "If that letter could have been produced at her funeral, it would have thrown the weight of the 'People's Princess' behind the Royal Family at a time when it needed it most.  I reproduce it now to remove all doubt, and they are the thoughts, devoid of animosity, of the only Spencer whose views count."

Burrell also writes that the wrong impression was created in the week of Diana's death by commentators who sought to imply she had been at loggerheads with the monarchy.

He writes:  "No one could have been more devoid of hatred than the princess, and no one wanted to see the House of Windsor survive more than she."

Diana also revealed in her letter that she empathised with the Queen's "disappointment" over the failure of her marriage to Prince Charles.

"I understand the isolation, misconception and lies that surround her," Diana adds.

~ ~ ~ ~

Click on the book to order
"A Royal Duty" by Paul Burrell 

© Paul Burrell

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