By Richard Kay
Plans to release a controversial documentary on the death of Princess Diana to coincide with the 15th anniversary of her fatal car crash in Paris have been scrapped, I can reveal.
The film, bankrolled by former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed which claims the Princess was murdered in an Establishment plot involving Prince Philip, was due to be released in America on August 31.
But now, just a year after it was shown to incredulous critics at the Cannes Film Festival, Unlawful Killing has been dramatically withdrawn and will not be screened anywhere in the world.
It will come as a relief to Princes William and Harry, who are already steeling themselves for a Hollywood biopic about their mother, Caught In Flight, starring Naomi Watts as Diana.
The £2.5 million Al Fayed documentary Unlawful Killing, produced by polemicist Victor Lewis-Smith and narrated by actor Keith Allen, set out to challenge the result of the formal inquest into Diana’s death.
It accused everyone from the Royal Family, the judiciary and the U.S. government, to the French police, hospital staff and undertakers of being part of a cover-up in the deaths of Diana and Dodi.
Lawyers warned the production contained 87 contentious assertions which would have had to be cut before the film could be screened in Britain. This proved impossible.
Undaunted, the producers went ahead with plans to have it shown abroad. I understand they wanted to have the picture opening during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year.