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fly, cuba baca nih......another speculation...
Arab conspiracy theories abound about Princess Diana's death
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An Arab world conspiracy theory about Princess Diana's death in a car crash, propounded in magazines, best-selling books and a court suit, paints her as the target of a British plot.
Now, a movie is in the works.
Director Khairi Beshera says "The Last Supper," will be about Diana's life, not conspiracies surrounding her death. But the notion that she was killed because she was about to convert to Islam to wed Egyptian Dodi Fayed, who died with her, is too popular to ignore.
"I have to deal with this even if it is naive," said Beshera, whose films have been shown at European festivals.
No such evidence of a conspiracy has been presented, and British officials have termed the idea absurd. But that has not stopped many in Egypt from imagining a plot by a British establishment aghast at thoughts of Diana converting to Islam, marrying Fayed and bearing a son named Mohammed who would be a half-brother to England's future king.
Diana, Fayed and the driver of their car died Aug. 31 in a Paris car crash. Investigators still are examining details of the accident, looking for a cause. The driver, Henri Paul, was legally drunk.
Four months after the princess's death, Cairo bookshops and newsstands remain piled high with magazines and books adorned with pictures of Diana and alluring titles about the "fake" car crash and supposed details of how she and Fayed really died.
A blurb on the back cover of "Assassination of a Princess" by Ahmed Atta says Diana joined a long list of celebrities killed for political reasons.
In the chapter "Who Killed Diana and Dodi," Atta, an Egyptian journalist, quotes unidentified sources as saying the British intelligence agency MI6 is to blame. To support his theory, Atta cites news reports that British agents spied on the princess in Paris.
Another journalist, Ilham Sharshar of the Al-Ahram daily, says Diana confided to her friend Jemima Goldsmith, who converted to Islam to wed Pakistani cricket legend Imran Khan, that she, too, was considering becoming Muslim. It's all in Sharshar's book "Diana, a Princess Killed by Love."
A Cairo lawyer, Nabih el-Wahsh, uses these ideas in a lawsuit seeking to blame MI6 agents for Diana's death and accusing Queen Elizabeth II of ordering the killing.
In January, a Cairo court is expected to decide whether to hear the case -- an unlikely outcome, but not impossible considering Egyptian courts often take up cases of perceived insults to Islam.
El-Wahsh claims he has evidence, but concedes his suit is mostly based on Arab media reports.
For example, he plans to show the court an Arabic newspaper clip saying that when Diana visited Pakistan last year, she asked the imam of a Lahore mosque about conversion to Islam. El-Wahsh said he also will present reports claiming Diana was pregnant.
"They have to kill her to prevent her from giving birth to a baby from a Muslim man," he said. "It is evident like the sun. ...It does not need any effort to prove it."
Beshera, the director, said he wanted to make a drama about Diana's life, ending with her romance with Fayed and their shocking deaths.
Shooting for the movie, projected to cost about $600,000, will start soon, says Beshera. Beshera says he has collected books, news clippings and video tapes about Diana dating to her 1981 marriage to Prince Charles.
"It is her endless effort for emancipation and defiance of the conservative royal traditions that made me think of making a film about Diana," he said.
Perhaps, but in a film made with Egyptian actors for an Arab audience, the conspiracy theories can't be ignored.
El-Wahsh says Britain and France will have a hard time convincing the Arab public that Diana's death really was an accident.
"Why do they want us to believe in the coincidence theory when they refuse to accept the conspiracy theory?" he asked.
Copyright 1997 The Shawnee News-Star
[ Last edited by lorenabobbit on 12-1-2004 at 08:42 PM ] |
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