Diana jury sees dramatic final moments

The inquest into the death of Princess Diana will hear "scene setting" evidence after dramatic images of the fatal 1997 crash were shown.At the High Court in London, the jury was shown photographs of the minutes before and after Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed died in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.One of the shots, taken by photographer Jacques Langevin, depicts the couple in the back of the Mercedes as it leaves the Ritz Hotel.In it Diana is seen with her head turned, looking out of the back window. Beside her is Dodi apparently hunched over, but facing forward.In the front passenger seat is bodyguard Trevor Rees, formerly Trevor Rees-Jones, the only survivor of the crash, peeping under the visor.Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury that many had come to believe something "sinister" may lie behind the crash but urged them to disregard the "millions of words" said and written on the subject and come to a decision on the evidence they heard.He told the court how Dodi's father, the Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, remains convinced the couple were murdered in a plot hatched by MI6 on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.The jury heard that Mr Al Fayed believes that Diana and his son Dodi were expecting a baby and that they would have announced their engagement on September 1, the day after the crash.But Lord Justice Scott Baker dismissed suggestions that a famous photograph of the Princess in a leopard-print swimsuit could be proof that she was pregnant with Dodi's child when it was taken in the summer of 1997, saying she had not started a relationship with him at that stage.The coroner said the jury would hear how Mr Al Fayed believed the couple had been on the way to Dodi's Paris flat that night because Dodi wanted to present Diana with a ring there and then.Mr Al Fayed, he said, claimed his own relations with the Royal Family had deteriorated after it emerged that his son was in a relationship with Diana because: "They could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be step-father to the future King of England."He is convinced that Henri Paul, the couple's driver that night, was in the pay of MI6 and French secret services, the coroner said.Two high-level investigations - one by the French authorities and Scotland Yard's "Operation Paget" inquiry - have found that the couple's Mercedes crashed because Mr Paul had been drinking and was driving too fast.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

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ITN | October 3, 2007

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