British judge seen "no evidence" Diana was murdered

LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) The judge investigating the death of Princess Diana said today she had not seen ''a shred of evidence'' to back claims that the former wife of the British heir-to-the-throne had been murdered.

Coroner Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was responding to a request from lawyers representing Mohamed al Fayed, whose son Dodi died alongside Diana in a Paris car crash 10 years ago, to delay a long awaited inquest into the their deaths.

Fayed, the multimillionaire owner of the luxury Harrods department store, has long argued that the couple were deliberately killed as part of an elaborate plot hatched by British security services.

''There are a large number of serious allegations being made ...

there is not a shred of evidence given to me about these allegations,'' Butler-Sloss said at a preliminary inquest hearing at London's High Court.

''If there is no evidence to support them, I shall not present them to the jury.'' A three-year British police investigation ruled at the end of last year that the crash was an accident and not part of an elaborate murder plot as Fayed claims.

The British inquiry backed a French probe which concluded that the driver, a Fayed employee, was to blame because he was drunk, under the influence of anti-depressants and driving too fast. Fayed has rejected both British and French findings.

Last week Fayed won a major legal challenge after High Court judges ruled that the inquest should be heard before a jury and not by Butler-Sloss sitting alone.

Appeal court judge Janet Smith, handing out the ruling, said: ''Mr Al Fayed has alleged that the Duke of Edinburgh and the Security Services conspired to kill the princess and Dodi Al Fayed.'' ''The allegation must be inquired into,'' she said.

Monday's hearing was due to decide who would be witnesses at the inquest and how the jury should be picked. But instead became bogged down in legal argument over when and where it should take place.

Fayed's lawyer Michael Mansfield argued that the full inquest should be delayed from May until Oct. 1 to give him time to pore over reports and expert opinion.

''A six month delay is a pebble on the beach compared with what has happened so far,'' he said.

However Butler-Sloss said she was reluctant to do so for risk of upsetting Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry.

HARD ON THE FAMILIES ''I would be very sad if I was obliged to delay the start another six months,'' she said. ''That would be very hard on the families.'' Fayed lawyers are expected to call for Diana's ex-husband Prince Charles and her ex-father-in-law the Duke of Edinburgh as witnesses during the inquest, a move likely to be strongly resisted by lawyers for the royal family.

If they do have to take the stand, that could rival the media frenzy that surrounded the trials in the United States of Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson.

Diana, 36, Dodi, 42, and their chauffeur Henri Paul were killed when their Mercedes limousine smashed at high speed into a pillar in a Paris road tunnel as they sped away from the Ritz Hotel, pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes.

Under British law an inquest is needed to formally determine the cause of death when someone dies unnaturally.

REUTERS PDM PM1820