The Slatest

Scotland Yard Is “Assessing” Allegations That Military Was Involved in Princess Diana’s Death

Picture dated 14 November 1992 of Princess Diana leaving the first anti-AIDS bookshop in Paris

Photo by VINCENT AMALVY/AFP/Getty Images

UPDATE: The Sunday People reports the police are investigating claims that the elite British Special Air Service—or SAS—was behind the deaths of Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed. The paper says it saw a seven-page handwritten letter by the parents-in-law of a special forces sniper, who is never named, claiming he had boasted to his wife that the SAS “was behind Princess Diana’s death.” On Sunday, a former head of Royal Protection said he was mystified by the new claims, insisting the deaths were “an accident by any definition,” reports the Telegraph.

Original post: British police acknowledged Saturday that detectives are examining new information they received on the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. London’s Metropolitan Police emphasized that “this is not a re-investigation” into the 1997 deaths. Rather, police are “scoping” the details of the information and “assessing its relevance and credibility,” according to a statement.

The police refuses to reveal any details of this new information or where it came from, although there are reports that a member of the British military may have been responsible for the deaths, according to Sky News. Reports claim it was the Royal Military Police that passed on this new info to the London police and reportedly includes a reference to the Special Air Service, known as SAS, notes the Telegraph. Sky News hears word the information was passed on to police by the parents-in-law of a former soldier.

Scotland Yard emphasized that this new assessment of evidence “does not come under Operation Paget,” as the investigation into conspiracy theories that Diana and her boyfriend were murdered is known, points out the BBC. A 2006 report found that there was no evidence the couple was murdered. Then in 2008, a jury ruled that the couple was killed due to the “grossly negligent driving” of their driver as well as the paparazzi chasing them.