When Prince Philip was accused of ordering the assassination of Diana
Prince Philip enjoyed a low-profile before he was sensationally accused of ordering the assassination of Princess Diana.
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Aside from his well-known gaffes, Prince Philip had enjoyed a relatively low-profile public image until 2008 when he was sensationally accused of ordering the assassination of Princess Diana.
Diana had died a decade earlier but lingering doubts about evidence presented at an earlier inquiry in France led to a British coroner to question witnesses and challenge statements for the first time.
It was always going to be a sensation, but few who packed into Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London could have imagined who was going to be blamed for her death, least of all Prince Philip.
Outside the court at the opening of the inquest on October 2007, Mohamed al Fayed signalled what was to come when he claimed it was the royal family that killed Lady Diana, his son and her boyfriend Dodi al Fayed and their driver on August 31, 1997.
On February 18, 2008 the then billionaire Harrods boss Mr al Fayed had his moment as he gave evidence to the coroner and claimed it was Prince Philip, whom he referred to as the Nazi, the racist and Frankenstein, who killed the trio in the Paris tunnel.
Under the protection of a legal proceeding, he went onto to say it was former prime minister Tony Blair, the man who dubbed Diana the “People’s Princess”, who sanctioned the kill plot by a royal family of “Draculas”.
Mr al Fayed had a full day in court and did not hold back as he declared “this is my moment” and read a catalogue of allegations.
The Egyptian-born businessman used the Coroner’s Court and the witness box to implicate everyone in British establishment including the MI6, the CIA, French authorities, British police chiefs and even Diana’s sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale as involved in the death plot to rid Diana and the risk of a Muslim stepfather to the future king on England Prince William.
But while he accused Tony Blair of having sanctioned the “momentous and horrific” crash, it was the Duke of Edinburgh who was the chief co-ordinator of the event.
“I’m in no doubt whatsoever that my son and Princess Diana were murdered by the British security services on the orders of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”, Mr al Fayed had said with a real sense of drama.
He later told the hearing: “Here is an article. I would like to show it to you, walking with a Hitler General when he was 15 years old. Here it is. You want someone like that, growing up with the Nazis, accept(ing) my son?
“There is no way. This is the proof again.”
The photo he held up did show Prince Philip walking in a funeral parade for his sister Cecile and her husband the Grand Duke of Hesse George Donatus, whom had been killed in a plane crash, through the streets of Germany in 1937 alongside several military leaders.
He went onto describe how Prince Philip grew up with an aunty who married one of Hitler’s generals. He said he, like the rest of the royal family, was still living in the 18th and 19th centuries where people and events could be manipulated.
“He would not accept my son, anyone who is a person of different religion, naturally tanned, curly hair, they will not accept that he will have anything to do with the future King,” he railed.
“Prince Philip rules the country behind the scenes. I think Prince Philip is the actual head of the Royal Family. He is a racist. He was brought up by his aunt who married one of Hitler’s generals. This is the man who is in charge who is manipulating and can do anything. Time to send him back to Germany or from where he comes from. You want to know his original name — it ends in Frankenstein.”
Mr al Fayed also claimed Diana had telephoned him to say she was pregnant, just before she died.
Part of the plot, he said, included faking medical certificates and blood samples for driver Henri Paul, who died along with Dodi and Diana. The pregnancy was part of the reason, he said, Prince Philip need her out of the way.
The only person spared from his rant was the Queen who he declared was not powerful enough to influence anything.
The prince was called to be a witness by Mr al Fayed’s legal team but the coroner ruled it was not necessary. The Palace was incensed of the claims but did not respond. The coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker later ruled there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest the Duke or any other member of the royal family was involved in Lady Diana’s death. He also ruled that the jury could not find her death was murder. He specifically ridiculed Mr al Fayed’s conspiracy testimony.
Prince Philip reportedly had had a fraught relationship with Diana who, according to one of the princess’s confidantes faith healer Simone Simmons, wrote her nasty letters calling her a “trollop” and a “harlot” and claimed her actions were causing damage to the royal family.
He also allegedly told her to put up with his son’s Charles’ affair with Camilla.
The letters, if they ever existed, went missing after her death.
After that revelation, Prince Philip took the rare decision to publicly dismiss the claims, incensed they were now being requoted widely.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “Prince Philip wishes to make it clear that at no point did he ever use the insulting terms described in the media reports, nor that he was curt or unfeeling in what he wrote. He regards the suggestion that he used such derogatory terms as a gross misrepresentation of his relations with his daughter-in-law and hurtful to his grandsons.”
The palace considered going further and taking legal action but later thought against it.
After Mr al Fayed’s court rant and the revelation of the supposed letters, friends for both Prince Philip and Lady Diana branded the claims false, and prior to her death the pair had a good relationship and he became a figure whom she turned to for paternalistic advice and signed letters he wrote her with “Pa”.
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Originally published as When Prince Philip was accused of ordering the assassination of Diana
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