It is finally over for Mohammad Fayed, the coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker has begun his summing up into the Inquests into the deaths of Dianna, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed. The inquest which begun in October last year is estimated to have cost £10m.
The coroner demolished the central claim by the Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed, telling the jury that the suggestion that Prince Philip had ordered MI6 to arrange for the couple to die in a Paris road tunnel on 31 August 1997 was without foundation.
Dismissing Mr Fayed's theories, he said: "Foremost among them is the proposition that Diana was assassinated by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh. There is no evidence that the Duke of Edinburgh ordered Diana's execution, and there is no evidence the Secret Intelligence Service or any other government agency organised it."
The only witness to fully support this claim was Mr Fayed. "The [telephone] conversation involved three people but only one can tell us about it now," the coroner said. "Sadly the only other people who can confirm or deny it are no longer alive, so this fairly and squarely raises the issue of Mohamed Al Fayed's credibility. Is this a man on whose word you can rely?"
Dealing with whether Diana and Dodi were or were about to get engaged, the coroner highlighted a mass of, at times, conflicting evidence about their previous relationships. And he asked the jury: "At the end of the day does the precise state of the relationship between Diana and Dodi really matter?"
Towards the end even the lawyers acting on My Al Fayed behalf admitted that there was no case to answer and conspiracy, Mr Al Fayed was in court but left without making a statement. Will he now let the case drop, I doubt that very much, and even now I am sure he his planning his next move, only time will tell what that will be.
Rabbit