A coroner's jury ruled that Princess Diana and her boyfriend were unlawfully killed as the result of the drinking driver and reckless pursuing photographers, media reported Tuesday.
"The verdict is unlawful killing, grossly negligent driving of the following vehicles and of the Mercedes" carrying the couple, the jury foreman announced.
Nine of the 11 jurors agreed the verdict, with two dissenters.
But no British charges can be laid against the photographers because the accident happened in France.
All 11 agreed that the car slamming head-on into a concrete pillar rather than striking the wall on the other side was a key factor in their deaths.
Diana and Dodi Fayed were also to blame for not buckling their seat belts, the jury said.
But it laid heaviest blame on Henri Paul, the couple's driver, who had been drinking shortly before the high-speed crash in a Paris underpass on Aug. 31, 1997, and on the paparazzi who chased after them.
Diana's two sons, Princes William and Harry, expressed support for the verdict and thanked the jurors for their six-month-long "thorough" work.
"We agree with their verdicts, and are both hugely grateful to each and every one of them for the forbearance they have shown in accepting such significant disruption to their lives over the past six months," the princes said in a statement.
The verdicts vindicated the force's two-year investigation, said John Stevens, the former chief of London's Metropolitan Police, who said it had spent 16 million dollars on its two-year investigation.
Fayed's wealthy father, Mohamed Al Fayed, still insisted that the couple were victims of planned murder, and called it a "disappointing" verdict.
"The most important thing is, it is murder," he said as he left the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday.
Al Fayed's aides weren't ruling out an appeal.
Source:Xinhua
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