The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

Paparazzi photographers had gathered outside a Paris hotel on the night Diana, princess of Wales died because of rumours she was to announce a pregnancy or engagement, a British inquest was told Wednesday. Sigma picture agency photographer Thierry Orban said in a statement that he had told police he received a call at home from his editor between 9:00 pm and 9:30 pm on the night of August 30, 1997, telling him to go to the hotel where Diana was staying. "He told me that there were rumours of an announcement that Lady Diana was getting married or having a baby and asked me to go to the Ritz Hotel," Orban said in a statement read to the jury. Orban said he initially refused to go because he was hosting a dinner party. But he was called again in the early hours of the following morning and went to the Pont de l'Alma tunnel after Diana's high-powered Mercedes crashed into a pillar, killing her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul.