Talk Of Spying, Lovers Focus In Di Probe
As the inquiry into the death of Princess Diana resumed, the question of whether the Royal Family was spying on her took center stage -- along with the possibility that an ex she called "the love of her life" would break his long silence, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.
He says that, among Diana's complaints about her royal relatives was that they were bugging her. In fact, she was so suspicious that she was under surveillance by what she called "dark forces," she brought in a counter-snoop.
Security expert Grahame Harding did a sweep of her apartment in Kensington Palace to see if Diana's suspicions were true. He has now told the inquiry that he did, in fact, find something emitting a signal from within that apartment. "A device," he called it.
It didn't surprise anybody, Phillips observed."
"Diana did think she was being bugged," confirms CBSNews consultant Patrick Jephson, who was Diana's private secretary for eight years. "I used to remind her quite often that, as the future queen, as a significant public figure, it was quite reasonable to assume that she was under surveillance most of the time."
Photos: Diana's Ill-Fated Journey
But, notes Phillips, as Diana's marriage to Prince Charles broke down, it didn't take electronic devices to determine that she was having a series of relationships.
"There was plenty of proof of her extramarital activities, just as there was of her husband's," Jephson says. "Indeed, she admitted it."
And now, Phillips points out, the inquiry may hear from the figure at the center one of the most significant of those extramarital affairs. Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan may testify.
Phillips describes him as "the one man who may know the most about her state of mind and her relationship with Dodi Fayed," with whom Diana died in a car crash in Paris tunnel in August 1997.
Photos: Diana Paparazzi Photos
"I don't think there's any doubt," Jephson told Phillips, "that there was a relationship between Hasnat Khan and the princess, and that it seems to have been a very passionate and mutually rewarding one. I think that remarks that this was 'the love of her life' may be a little exaggerated, but there's no doubt they did have a relationship and sadly it was not one that could become permanent."
Some of Diana's friends say she took up with Dodi Fayed, who died with her in that Paris tunnel, to make Khan jealous.
But Dodi's family members have another theory.
"Fayed's legal counsel wants us to believe that Hasnat ended the relationship with Diana because she had found a new man, Dodi," says Jephson. "On the other hand, those who would like to play down the significance of her relationship with Dodi would say that Hasnat ended the relationship with Diana because of press pressure."
The Diana inquiry was set up to try to finally resolve the issues surrounding her death," Phillips concluded. "Instead, it seems to be raking over the still hot coals of her complicated life."