11.1.08

Diana Inquest - Al Fayed's media man under fire for spinning



Mohamed Al Fayed's media adviser Michael Cole was given a rough ride when he appeared at the inquest into the deaths of Diana and Dodi this week. Under scrutiny were his statements to the press in the aftermath of the fatal crash in August 2007. He had tried to slice his story two ways and made a cynical complaint to the PCC about the media's coverage in the process. Mohamed Al Fayed's position was and is that Diana and Dodi were to be engaged and that she was pregnant. This was the reason they were, in his mind, the victims of a planned assasination by security services and not a tragic accident. Having been told by Al Fayed that this was the case, Cole had briefed the media that there was not a "scrap of evidence" to suggest this and went as far as complaining to the PCC when some newspapers suggested the pregnanacy theory. The Coroner, Lord Scott Baker considered this complaint to have been somewhat disingenuous.

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