Diana's letter from grave accuses Charles

From beyond the grave, Princess Diana has reached out to accuse the Prince of Wales of plotting her murder.

The Daily Mirror, in a five-page report, sensationally named Prince Charles as the person who the Princess of Wales believed wanted her dead in order to marry Camilla Parker Bowles.

The hand-written letter's existence was brought to light last year in a book by Princess Diana's butler Paul Burrell, but the name of the alleged plotter was blanked out.

Before she died in a car crash in 1997, she had written: "My husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury ... to make the path clear for him to marry."

Paul Burrell has been asked to hand the document to the royal coroner, Michael Burgess, who overnight in England was due to open the inquest into the death of Diana and boyfriend Dodi Fayed.

The Daily Mirror printed the allegation in its latest edition, claiming it was certain to emerge at the inquest.

Burrell claimed Diana wrote the letter 10 months before her death, as "insurance".

She said she wrote the note sitting at her desk "longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high".

The Evening Standard website carried a response to the revelation from a "close friend of Prince Charles" who said: "It is risible and deeply hurtful. I am sure nobody believes this preposterous claim."

The royal coroner confronts more than six years of speculation and conspiracy theories as he opens the first British inquests into the two deaths.

Coroners' investigations are normally limited in scope, but many hope the inquiries will take a broader look at the Paris car crash that still haunts Britons.

Inquests are required by law when Britons die abroad of other than natural causes.

A spokeswoman for Mr Burgess said he waited for French legal proceedings in the case to finish before beginning his inquiries.

He planned to hold two brief hearings then immediately adjourn the inquests to a later date so that he could conduct further research.

She did not know when public proceedings would begin again, and said Mr Burgess did not plan to set a firm date immediately.

The inquests could be as narrowly focused as an examination of the immediate circumstances of the crash and the medical causes of Diana's and Fayed's deaths, or they could be more wide ranging.

Mr Burgess said last month in announcing the inquests that he would further outline today his investigations.

Fayed's father, Mohammed al-Fayed, believes his son and Diana were murdered, and speculation that MI6 was responsible has circulated for years.