BRITAIN:It was some time during the afternoon that counsel for the Metropolitan Police outlined the extent of the international conspiracy to kill Diana, Princess of Wales, and her companion Dodi Fayed, as outlined by Dodi's father Mohamed al-Fayed, in the high court in London yesterday.
Shortly after Tony Blair and [ former UK foreign secretary] Robin Cook had been added to Fayed's list of conspirators, Richard Horwell QC, a note of incredulity rising in his voice, said: "So that's MI5, MI6, the CIA, the DGSE - the French intelligence service - Judge Stephan . . . the French ambulance service . . . Lord Condon, Lord Stevens . . . Mr Burgess, the Surrey coroner and Lady Sarah McCorquodale?"
He could have added several more: two bodyguards; the French pathologists; a photographer called James Andanson, who was allegedly driving the white Fiat Uno that brushed against the Mercedes shortly before it crashed in the Alma tunnel in Paris on August 31st, 1997; Henri Paul, the chauffeur; a reception clerk at the Ritz hotel; Sir Michael Jay, the then British ambassador; Sir Robert Fellowes, the queen's private secretary, who was Diana's brother-in-law; Lord Mishcon, her solicitor; and - of course - Prince Philip and Prince Charles.
Time and again, Fayed answered: "Definitely." "You don't care what you say about anyone, do you, Mr al-Fayed?" said Horwell. "You truly do not care about the interests of other people, do you Mr al-Fayed? You don't care about the evidence, do you?"
Day 71 of the inquest and it was finally Fayed's day in court. It proved to be six hours on Planet Fayed as the Harrods department store owner repeatedly outlined his allegations against virtually anyone, it appears, who has ever crossed him.
His counsel have repeatedly refrained during the inquest from raising some of the more extraordinary claims, possibly for lack of evidence - as Fayed's former director of security admitted in court last week. But that did not abash him in the least.
There was the Duke of Edinburgh, masterminding the murder of his former daughter-in-law from Balmoral: "It is well known he is Nazi, a racist. Fine. It's time to send him back to Germany from where he comes. You want to know his original name? It ends in Frankenstein."
And the Prince of Wales: "He participated [ in] it. Definitely and I am sure he knows what is going to happen because he would like to get on and marry his Camilla. And this is what happened. They cleared the decks. They finished her. They murdered her. And now he is happy."
The French ambulance service was implicated too, for driving Diana to hospital too slowly. And the French intelligence service and the French magistrate investigating the crash, who determined it was an accident: they also conspired. "The French are not renowned for doing the bidding of the British, Mr al-Fayed, are they?" said Horwell drily.
As for the motive, the British establishment did not want Diana to marry a Muslim and had discovered she was pregnant. The fact that she had just ended a two-year relationship with the Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan and had emerged unscathed: "All this baloney. It was just a casual relation with this guy, a friend but nothing serious. You cannot say marry someone like that, lives in a council flat and has no money. How do you think a guy like that can support her?"
Horwell: "She could not possibly marry a man on the income of a surgeon?" Fayed: "Why you ask such silly questions? What you are saying is just bullshit."
The conspiracy was all the more remarkable, counsel suggested, because the news that Diana and Dodi were going to get engaged and that she was pregnant was only disclosed in a single brief telephone call to Fayed an hour before the crash.
Fayed: "What you want to prove? You are talking absolute rubbish." Horwell: "This elaborate conspiracy has minutes to be formed and put into operation."
Fayed: "No. They knew what they had been discussing." He seemed incredulous that anyone should question his word. He said: "It's proved, there are dark forces. My version is the right version because [ I] don't take any garbage from anybody who can pretend they are important . . . It's just a great tragedy that they don't let her to be happy and enjoy her life."