Letter says Princess Diana feared car tampering

LONDON — A letter reportedly written by Princess Diana expressing fears that someone was plotting to eliminate her by tampering with the brakes of her car brought the painful story of her 1997 death back to the front pages yesterday and prompted a call for a public inquiry.

The Daily Mirror tabloid said Diana wrote the letter to her butler, Paul Burrell, in October 1996 — 11 months before the Paris car crash that killed the princess, her companion Dodi Fayed and the car's driver, Henri Paul.

Fayed's father, Mohammed al Fayed — who has long contended the crash was part of a plot to kill the couple and not an accident — called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to hold a full and independent public inquiry or stand accused of colluding in a cover-up.

The letter confirmed "the suspicions I have so often voiced in public and which have thus far been ignored," al Fayed, the owner of Harrods department store, said in a statement.

The letter was included in excerpts from Burrell's forthcoming book, "A Royal Duty," published yesterday in the Daily Mirror. The paper printed a photograph of what it said was part of the letter.

The excerpts quoted the princess as writing to Burrell that "this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous." She reportedly wrote that someone was planning "an accident in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry."

The newspaper said Diana named the person she believed was plotting against her but that it could not reveal the identity for fear of a lawsuit. The name was blacked out in the photo of the letter.

The Daily Mirror quoted Burrell as saying that in the letter containing the allegation Diana told him, "I'm going to date this and I want you to keep it ... just in case."

The book excerpt said that Diana suspected listening devices were planted in her home at Kensington Palace and that Burrell and the princess once rolled up the sitting-room rug and pried up the floorboards but found no such devices.

Burrell said Diana believed she was regarded as a nuisance once she and Charles were divorced in 1996.

A French judge has ruled that the driver's use of drugs and alcohol and the car's high speed caused the accident in a Paris road tunnel. There has never been an inquiry in Britain. A Surrey county coroner said in August he would hold an inquest into Dodi Fayed's death, but no date has been set for it. Buckingham Palace has said there eventually will be a British investigation of Diana's death, since the law requires one, but no date has been announced.

Clarence House, representing Prince Charles, declined to comment on the latest claims, and a spokeswoman for Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, said he was aware of the newspaper story but had no comment.

Burrell reportedly told the paper he had been uncertain what to do with the letter.

"That letter had been part of the burden I have carried since the princess's death," he was quoted as saying. "Knowing what to do with it has been a source of much soul-searching."

Burrell went on trial in 2002 on charges of stealing some of Diana's possessions. His trial collapsed after Queen Elizabeth II said he'd told her he was taking the items for safekeeping.