British inquest into Diana's death opens

More than six years after Diana died in a car crash in Paris, Royal Coroner Michael Burgess opened an inquest into her death by saying Britain's top police officer should investigate claims her death was not an accident but a deliberate plot.

"I am aware that there is speculation that (her death was) not the result of a sad but relatively straightforward road traffic accident in Paris," Burgess told the inquest, which was packed with hundreds of journalists from around the world.

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"I have asked the metropolitan police commissioner to make inquiries."

Diana died at the age of 36, along with her lover Dodi al Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul, in the August 1997 crash.

In a front-page splash on Tuesday, the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper named Charles as the person she had claimed was "planning an accident" to kill her.

She made the allegation in a letter she gave to her butler and confidant, Paul Burrell, before she died.

The Mirror quoted from the letter Diana wrote just 10 months before her death. "This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous," it said. "My husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury."

A spokesman for Prince Charles declined to comment.

Royal biographer Robert Lacey said Diana's claim that her husband wanted her dead reduced the credibility of the allegation.