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Police decline to re-open probe in Princess Diana’s death

A woman looks at a montage of images of Princess Diana in the shape of a number fifty on fencing outside Kensington Palace in London, which was the residence of the princess, Friday, July 1, 2011.
A woman looks at a montage of images of Princess Diana in the shape of a number fifty on fencing outside Kensington Palace in London, which was the residence of the princess, Friday, July 1, 2011. AP Photo/Matt Dunham

LONDON – London’s police force said Tuesday there is “no credible evidence” that British special forces were involved in the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed and it will not reopen the investigation.

Scotland Yard has been looking into claims that the SAS had played a role. It conducted a “scoping exercise” to assess the credibility of the information and decided whether it warranted reopening the criminal investigation, and police said they were given unprecedented access to British special forces records.

“Every reasonable line of inquiry was objectively pursued in order to fully evaluate any potential evidence,” police said in a statement Tuesday. “There is no credible evidence to support a theory that such claims had any basis in fact.”

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The claims, widely reported in the British media, were made by an ex-SAS member identified only as Soldier N.

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READ MORE: UK police examining recently received information on death of Princess Diana

Diana, Dodi and their driver, Henri Paul, died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997.

A jury for the inquest into the deaths of Diana and Dodi Fayed returned a verdict in April 2008 saying that “the people’s princess” and her boyfriend were unlawfully killed, saying the car’s driver and paparazzi share blame for the deaths.

Simon McKay, a lawyer for Fayed’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, said his client was disappointed by the decision not to reopen the criminal investigation.

Mohamed al Fayed had accused Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, of directing a complicated conspiracy that resulted in the couple’s car slamming into a concrete pier at high speed in an underpass in Paris.

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