Fayed may have bugged Diana, says her sister

Diana, Princess of Wales, suspected Mohamed Al Fayed had secretly bugged her conversations while she was his guest during a yachting holiday in the Mediterranean just days before she died in Paris in 1997.

The new "bugging" revelation emerged yesterday in evidence given by Diana's sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, to the inquests into the deaths of Diana and Dodi Fayed, being heard at the High Court in London.

Lady Sarah told the jury her sister had rung her from Mr Al Fayed's yacht, the Jonikal, in the last week of August 1997. Diana told her sister that she "thought the boat was being bugged by Mohamed Al Fayed Snr," Lady Sarah told the jury yesterday.

Asked by Ian Burnett QC, counsel for the inquests, if Diana had given her any basis for these suspicions, Lady Sarah replied: "She did not tell me."

During their last conversation, Diana was also concerned about the media coverage of an interview she had given to the French newspaper Le Monde, in which she claimed she had been misquoted as criticising the British Government's policy on land mines. Lady Sarah said Diana was "distraught" by the article.

The inquests continue.