Diana 'feared car accident plot': former royal butler

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 20, 2003

Diana 'feared car accident plot': former royal butler

Late Princess Diana feared the brakes of her car were going to be tampered with 10 months before she died in a crash in Paris in August 1997, her former butler Paul Burrell has claimed.

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Late Princess Diana feared the brakes of her car were going to be tampered with 10 months before she died in a crash in Paris in August 1997, her former butler Paul Burrell has claimed.

"This phase in my life is the most dangerous," the princess allegedly wrote in a letter to Burrell, who kept it secret until now.

According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, which published the alleged letter on Monday, Princess Diana named someone who was "planning an accident in my car, brake failure and serious head injury."

The name of the alleged person has been blacked out by the newspaper for legal reasons.

Diana also believed the plot was "in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry," the report said.

Diana and her lover Dodi Al Fayed were killed on Aug. 31, 1997 when a Mercedes car driven by chauffeur Henri Paul crashed in the Pont D'Alma tunnel in Paris.

In 1999, a French inquiry blamed the accident on Paul, who was also killed in the crash, concluding he had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs and was driving too fast.

Burrell, currently in the United States, had been accused of stealing from Diana's estate in 2002. But his trial collapsed after the intervention of the Queen.

He said in a recent statement that he would include the letter in his forthcoming book.

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