Word: inquest
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nearly 10 years have passed since Princess Diana died, and the Windsors are still haunted by her. The royals expected an inquest into her death but thought it would be a quiet affair, presided over by a single judge. On Friday, however, Mohamed Al Fayed, the millionaire owner of Harrod's, won an unprecedented legal battle to have a jury hear the inquests into the 1997 deaths of Princess Diana and his son Dodi Fayed. Al Fayed believes Diana and his son were murdered by British intelligence. Three judges at London's High Court overturned a previous ruling by deputy...
...judges before she retired, decided to preside over the case alone because she thought that the volume and detail of the evidence would be too much for a jury to handle. She said that only a coroner could give the "careful and fully reasoned decision" that the inquests required. Her ruling seemed to go against the wishes of Princes William and Harry, who a week earlier had sent a letter to Butler-Sloss asking that the inquest "not only be open, fair and transparent, but that it should move swiftly to a conclusion...
...Fayed's challenge to Butler-Sloss' decision also took issue with the fact that she was presiding over the inquest as royal deputy coroner, which gave the perception that she "lacked [the] independence" needed to remain impartial in judging whether or not the Princess and Dodi Fayed were murdered. The High Court judges agreed, ruling that if Butler-Sloss is still going to hear the case, she can't do it as the royal coroner...
...inquest, which has been postponed several times for a series of police investigations in France and Britain, is due to start in May. "I am encouraged by today's judgment and now hope that justice can be done without further attempts to impair the process," the Egypt-born Al Fayed said in his statement. "All I have ever asked for is fair play. When I grew up, fair play was said to be the unofficial religion of the British Empire. It may have been then, but I have seen precious little of it since...
Diana Whodunit New report on Princess's demise Former London police chief John Stevens will release the results this week of a three-year British inquiry into Di's death. The inquest used cutting-edge technology to reconstruct the crash...