Word: inquest
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Everyone was expecting fireworks, but all they got was a damp squib. On Monday, the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed adjourned with her former butler Paul Burrell reluctantly agreeing to bring in a letter she had written to him just before she died. The letter, which is partly quoted in one of his books, referred to a special upcoming weekend and a "secret" the two of them shared - a secret that Burrell had refused on Monday to disclose, before the judge demanded the letter. Was Diana going to announce her pregnancy that weekend...
...minute he took his oath at the inquest into the deaths of Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed on Monday, Burrell became the closest thing this extended soap opera has to a star witness. Sitting with his hands clasped in front of him, speaking so softly that the lawyers had to ask him several times to talk louder, he spent most of the day answering questions about relationships: his and Diana's, Diana's and Prince Philip's, Diana's with Dodi's versus that with her ex-boyfriend, heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan. But it was near...
...since died - say to her daughter during a phone call in June 1997, a call that Diana had let Burrell listen in on. At first, Burrell balked, saying, "Respectfully, that's not very kind to a woman who's no longer here." But the judge ruling over the inquest, Lord Justice Scott Baker, insisted. Burrell stared down at his desk, chewed his lower lip, took a deep breath, and then, as his voice started to crack, said: "She called the Princess a whore and said she was messing around with eff-ing Muslims and she was disgraceful and said some...
...with Diana dating Dodi and Khan, both Muslims. Al Fayed's case depends on it; he alleges that the Royal Family had his son and the Princess assassinated to stop her from marrying a Muslim. Earlier that morning, Burrell, who flew in from his home in Florida for the inquest, had called Al Fayed "a very kind man," before going on to demolish - in the nicest possible way - Al Fayed's claims that Diana and Dodi were engaged...
...Citing a need for closure, Anne Darwin lobbied for an inquest, and her husband was declared legally dead in April 2003. The judgment enabled the couple to reap a life insurance policy of about $50,000 and wiped out an additional $260,000 in mortgage payments on their home...