'No evidence' of royal involvement in Di's murder: Coroner

London, Mar 31 : The coroner at the inquest into Princess Diana's death has told the jury that there was "no evidence" to prove that she was murdered by MI6 at the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Beginning his summing up to the jury after the six-month hearing, coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker said that most of Mohamed al Fayed's conspiracy theories about the crash were "so demonstrably without foundation" that his lawyer has also stopped pursuing them anymore.

While he started narrating the evidence of more than 250 witnesses, he did not pay any heed to the theories, which according to him were encouraged by the media for the past 10-and-a-half years.

"Various propositions were being asserted, have been shown to be so demonstrably without foundation that they are no longer being pursued by Mohamed al Fayed's lawyer, even if he still continues to believe in their truth in his own mind," the Mirror quoted the coroner, as telling the jury.

He said: "They are not being pursued because there is not a shred of evidence to support them. Foremost among them is the proposition that Diana was assassinated by the secret intelligence service (MI6) on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.

"There is no evidence that the Duke of Edinburgh ordered Diana's execution, and there is no evidence that the secret intelligence service or any other Government agency organised it," he added.

Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul were killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.

According to Dodi's father and Harrods tycoon Mohamed al Fayed, it was MI6, which murdered the couple on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh, to prevent Diana from getting pregnant with Dodi's child.

ANI