Princess Diana may have been six weeks pregnant at the time of the accident that killed her, Time magazine says in its latest issue. Meanwhile, Diana's bodyguard, Mr Trevor Rees-Jones, the sole survivor of the crash which killed her on August 31st, has partial amnesia and cannot remember any details of the accident, a source close to the inquiry said.
At his first public engagement since the princess's funeral, Prince Charles thanked people in Britain and abroad for their "heartfelt expressions of sympathy".
Time claims an emergency-service doctor told the magazine that an associate at the scene said Princess Diana was drifting in and out of consciousness, and at one point saying she was six weeks pregnant while making a rubbing gesture on her belly.
The office of the British coroner in charge of Diana's post-mortem had no comment, saying the pregnancy rumour was part of the investigation, the magazine said.
Time also said that rumours, fed by witnesses' silence, were rife about Diana's last words at the site of the crash. She was initially reported to have said, "Leave me alone!" and, "Oh, my God," as rescue workers, police and photographers bustled around the scene of the crash, which also killed her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the driver, Henri Paul.
Dodi's father, Mr Mohamed al-Fayed, has said he received Diana's last instructions and conveyed them to her sister Sarah, but neither he nor her family will say more.
An investigating magistrate questioned Mr Rees-Jones for 30 minutes in hospital, but the former paratrooper could not remember anything beyond the point where he got into the Mercedes outside the Ritz Hotel, the source said. Mr Rees-Jones (29), potentially the key witness to the tragedy, suffered severe chest, head and facial injuries in the crash and underwent 10 hours of surgery to rebuild his face.
He was apparently able to answer some questions by Judge Herve Stephan, but none dealing with the minutes leading up to the accident. One detail he did remember was that Henri Paul, subsequently found to be legally drunk, had appeared "fine" before leaving the Ritz. His parents were present at the interview at the PitieSalpetriere hospital, British diplomatic sources said.
Mr Paul's family was preparing to bury him today in his home town of Lorient, in Brittany, France.
A photo purporting to show the princess as she lay dying in the back of the crashed Mercedes is a fake, investigators said. Police in Paris said the position of the body of a blonde woman with a bloodstained face in no way resembled that of Diana when the first rescue workers arrived on the scene.
Earlier a Paris fire brigade chief, Maj Philippe Lavoil, said the picture, which was taken off the Internet and published by some French and Italian media, could not have been taken in France. He said that uniforms worn by firemen appearing in the photo were not those of Paris firemen.
At his first public engagement since the princess's funeral Prince Charles paid tribute to the courage of his two sons, Prince William (15) and Prince Harry (13), for the way they had faced up to the tragic loss of their mother. The prince received a warm welcome when he visited Manchester.
He and the two boys had received more than 250,000 letters of condolence. "These letters have meant a huge amount to us and the wonderful and very heartfelt expressions of sympathy have made such a difference," Prince Charles said.
"But obviously, Diana's loss and death has been an enormous loss as far as they're concerned and I will always feel that loss," he said.