BRITAIN:More than 10 years after Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed died, the emotional turmoil generated reduced one witness to tears and upset another, writes Owen Bowcottin London.
Effusive letters from Princess Diana to Dodi Fayed, suggesting the depth of her feelings about him, were read out at the inquest into her death yesterday.
The intimate notes were disclosed for the first time shortly before the hearing was told it would be given a secret recording of Dodi breaking up with his former fiancee. Both exchanges date from mid-August 1997.
More than 10 years after Diana and Dodi were killed in a car crash in the Alma tunnel in Paris, the emotional turmoil generated by their deaths was sufficient to reduce one witness to tears and bring another to the verge of distress.
Rosa Monckton, the princess's confidante who is married to Dominic Lawson, the former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, was asked to comment on two letters sent by Diana to Dodi after they had holidayed together on his father's yacht off St Tropez.
The passages were read by Michael Mansfield QC, representing Mohamed Al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods and Dodi's father. The revelation was intended to emphasise the family's case that the couple were deeply attached.
In one letter, thanking "Darling Dodi" for a six-day holiday on his yacht, Diana wrote: "This comes with all the love in the world and as always a million heartfelt thanks for bringing such joy into this chick's life." In another, sending him cufflinks, she wrote: "Darling Dodi, these cufflinks were the very last gift from the man I loved most in the world, my father.
"They are given to you as I know how much joy it would give him to know they were in such safe and special hands. Fondest love, Diana."
Mansfield said: "She was treating this relationship with Dodi as a serious matter, wasn't she? It doesn't suggest it was little more than a fling after a couple of days." But Monckton replied: "It's a thank-you letter . . . She tended to speak and write in an extravagant way."
Earlier she gave evidence that the princess would still have been going out with the heart surgeon, Hasnat Khan, but he could not bear the publicity.
Pressed by Mansfield about whether she had been told everything by her friend or could have misinterpreted what was said, Monckton, in tears, said: "Diana was a very good friend of mine for six years. She was godmother to my handicapped daughter and was by my side when I buried my other daughter. She was a very true and close friend. But that doesn't preclude her from not telling me certain things. You don't tell people everything the whole time."
Unscheduled evidence yesterday from the American model Kelly Fisher, Dodi's ex-fiancee, exposed the bitterness of their break-up which coincided with the start of his affair with Diana.
Fisher said she had recorded a telephone call with Dodi in mid-August 1997 after pictures had been published showing him kissing Diana. The tape, she said, is in a safe deposit box in the US but she would present it to the inquest.
Initially that night, she said, she could not get through to Dodi but managed to track down Mohamed Al Fayed. That conversation, she recalled, "was horrible because of the things he said to me and called me".
When she spoke to Dodi on the telephone, she recorded the call. Fisher told the inquest she asked Dodi: "'Why are you doing this to me? Is it because it's Princess Diana?' I said, 'Are we over?' and he said, 'We'll talk when I get to LA'." During the call, she said Dodi told her they had broken up two months before. "I said: 'Dodi, what are you talking about? I just came back from San Tropez [ with you]'. I was really going a little bit crazy and he did make a nice gesture to me. He told me, if I wanted, he would get me a psychiatrist, which was really nice."
Fisher explained that she wanted to set the record straight. She had launched a $500,000 lawsuit against Dodi for loss of earnings when she stopped work and he failed to pay her the money agreed in a "pre-nuptial agreement". She abandoned the case after his death.
She said Dodi treated his staff like a "dictator" and encouraged them to drive fast to meet his deadlines. Asked about questions over her engagement, Fisher, fighting back tears, replied: "It's just quite humiliating to sit here and try to prove to people that someone wanted to marry you, you know." The inquest continues.
- (Guardian service)