Decade-Old Evidence Unsealed at Diana Inquest

More than a decade later, the search for an official answer is on again.

The British government's inquest into the death of Princess Diana and boyfriend Dodi Fayed kicked off in a London court Tuesday, with six women and five men selected to determine whether the deaths were, as investigators in Britain and France have contended, an accident, or, as Dodi's father, Harrod's magnate Mohammed Al Fayed, insists, was a murder carried out by British secret service under orders from Prince Philip.

Diana and Dodi, along with their chauffeur, perished in a car crash in Parisian tunnel on Aug. 31, 1997, while being pursued by motorcycle-borne paparazzi. British Metropolitan Police and their associates in Paris have stood by their findings that it was the high speeds at which the car was traveling, as well the intoxication of the princess' driver, that led to the fatal crash.

Al Fayed and conspiracy theorists have disputed those claims from the beginning.

The inquest is expected to last up to six months. The proceedings are relatively transparent, with the government publicly releasing a trove of documents and images related to the incident, including, for the first time, photos of Diana on her final night. The princess can be seen leaving the Ritz hotel with Dodi and seated in the back of the car; there are also dozens of images of the aftermath of the crash. (View some of the images in our photo gallery.)

"We shall be conducting a vigorous and searching inquiry through the evidence so that the true cause of death may, if possible, be determined once and for all," Lord Justice Scott Baker said on the investigation's opening day.

On Tuesday, the lead coroner laid out several issues the inquest hoped to address: Whether Princess Diana feared for her life in the lead-up to her death; whether Diana and Dodi had imminent plans to announce either an engagement or pregnancy or both; whether driver Henri Paul was sober enough to be behind the wheel; and whether British secret service was involved in a conspiracy on the princess' life.

By Wednesday, though, Baker said at least one of the issues on the docket may never fully be resolved.

On the hotly contested issue of whether or not Diana was with child at the time of her death, Baker said, "It is likely that pregnancy is a matter that cannot be proved one way or the other in scientific terms in this case."

However, the jury did hear coroner testimony that there was evidence Diana was taking contraceptive pills at the time of her death. The judge also clarified that a photo of Diana in a leopard-print swimsuit and sporting a slight bulge, frequentyl cited in the press as evidence of a pregnancy, was taken before she even met Dodi.

And among protestations that further investigating a pregnancy would only contribute to salacious tabloid stories on the topic, Baker denied the claims and said instead that the issue was "highly relevant."

"First, her pregnancy or suspected pregnancy is said to have provided the motive or part of the motive for killing Diana," he said, referring to Mohammed Al Fayed's repeated theory that the pair was killed to prevent their marriage and nonroyal offspring.

"Second, her body was embalmed by the French, and it is said that the purpose of this was to conceal that she was pregnant."

The jury also heard confirmation that British Secret Intelligence Service officers were in fact in Paris the night of the crash, but that they say they were only in the city to deal with official liaison work with the French government, including dealings on counterterrorism offensives and matters of national security, and not to monitor the comings and goings of Diana.

"In other words, it is claimed they had other and bigger fish to fry," Baker said. "They were not concerned with the movements of dignitaries."

Baker reiterated earlier findings that Paul was maneuvering his way through Paris traffic with a blood-alcohol content over the legal U.K. limit. But Baker noted that witnesses saw no signs of his intoxication that night.

"There is a major issue over whether or not he was unfit to drive through drink or drugs but also whether evidence has been fabricated or made up to suggest that he was drunk when, in truth, he was not," Baker said.

Diana's former butler and confidante, Paul Burrell, who has since fallen out with the royal family over an unauthorized book on the princess, is expected to be called as a witness.

In the meantime, the jury is expected to be flown to Paris next week in order to retrace the princess' final steps and follow the car journey that ended her life.

The inquest, being held at London's Royal Courts of Justice, is expected to be complete in mid-2008.