Britain's SAS not involved in Diana's death, say police

British police said on Tuesday there was no "credible evidence" to support an allegation that the elite British army unit the Special Air Service (SAS) was involved in the 1997 deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi al Fayed in Paris.

It was widely reported in August that police were investigating a claim that a member of Britain's special forces had killed the couple.

The allegation is believed to have been made by an ex-soldier, whose former parents-in-law passed it on to police.

But on Tuesday police said that "whilst there is a possibility the alleged comments in relation to the SAS's involvement in the deaths may have been made, there is no credible evidence to support a theory that such claims had any basis in fact."

A "scoping exercise" had been conducted to assess the "relevance and credibility of the information" and to decide whether it warranted the reopening of a criminal investigation, the police said.

That included taking statements "from a number of individuals and reviewing records," police said, adding that they had been given "unprecedented access" to Special Forces Directorate records.

Diana and Dodi al Fayed died when their car crashed in a Paris tunnel as they were being chased by paparazzi. An inquest found they had been "unlawfully killed" by gross negligence on the part of the paparazzi and the couple's driver Henri Paul, who also died in the crash.

Al Fayed's father, businessman Mohamed al Fayed, was "disappointed" by the outcome and would continue to fight "to establish the truth that they were murdered," according to his solicitor.

Al Fayed has in the past accused Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, of arranging their murder, though previous police investigations have rejected those allegations.