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17/12/2007
Paris Deaths Never Suspicious: Police
It was all an accident, according to the French police investigating the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed.
Officers have told the London Inquest into the deaths that it was never once suggested the events were anything other than a tragic accident.
A retired detective chief superintendent, Jeff Rees, who acted as senior liaison officer between the Paris police investigators and Scotland Yard, said he asked the question at every meeting he had with them.
“The answer was always an unequivocal ’No’,” he said.
Mr Rees said he was initially put in charge of organising the attendance of police photographers, exhibits officers and others at Fulham mortuary, west London, where the bodies of Diana and Dodi arrived in the late afternoon of August 31 1997 for post-mortem examination.
He said that Dodi’s body was accompanied by both his father and the Harrods’ head of security.
Mr Rees said: “I expressed my condolences to Mr al Fayed and he implored me to do whatever I could to speed up the process at the mortuary because it was important for religious reasons that the body was buried before sunset that day,” said Mr Rees.
Neither Mr al Fayed nor his security chief said or implied that the deaths had been caused deliberately.
Mr Rees denied he was brought in by Assistant Commissioner David Veness as part of a cover-up because the deaths might have been suspicious.
He said he had an “open mind” about the crash, adding that this was an “unprecedented situation” and he wanted to take a cautious approach to the post-mortem.
He did not restrict the number of samples taken from the bodies in the post-mortem and no one at Scotland Yard had suggested to him that the deaths might be suspicious, he said.
(BMcC)
Officers have told the London Inquest into the deaths that it was never once suggested the events were anything other than a tragic accident.
A retired detective chief superintendent, Jeff Rees, who acted as senior liaison officer between the Paris police investigators and Scotland Yard, said he asked the question at every meeting he had with them.
“The answer was always an unequivocal ’No’,” he said.
Mr Rees said he was initially put in charge of organising the attendance of police photographers, exhibits officers and others at Fulham mortuary, west London, where the bodies of Diana and Dodi arrived in the late afternoon of August 31 1997 for post-mortem examination.
He said that Dodi’s body was accompanied by both his father and the Harrods’ head of security.
Mr Rees said: “I expressed my condolences to Mr al Fayed and he implored me to do whatever I could to speed up the process at the mortuary because it was important for religious reasons that the body was buried before sunset that day,” said Mr Rees.
Neither Mr al Fayed nor his security chief said or implied that the deaths had been caused deliberately.
Mr Rees denied he was brought in by Assistant Commissioner David Veness as part of a cover-up because the deaths might have been suspicious.
He said he had an “open mind” about the crash, adding that this was an “unprecedented situation” and he wanted to take a cautious approach to the post-mortem.
He did not restrict the number of samples taken from the bodies in the post-mortem and no one at Scotland Yard had suggested to him that the deaths might be suspicious, he said.
(BMcC)
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