London: A vast majority of Britons feel Princess Diana was murdered, a poll conducted by a London tabloid claimed on October 23.

More than 85 per cent of 'Daily Express' readers who took part in a phone poll refuse to believe that the crash in a Paris underpass, which killed the Princess and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed in 1997, was an accident.

Her former butler Paul Burrell's disclosure that 10 months before her death Diana wrote a letter outlining her fears that someone would tamper with her car brakes and try to kill her, appears to have convinced the British public of the conspiracy theories.

According to the report in the tabloid on October 23, the new opinion poll is expected to pile pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair to hold a public inquiry, amid claims by Dodi's father, Harrods owner Mohamed al Fayed that the couple were murdered by the British secret service and the government had engaged in a cover-up.

The readers were asked in the poll: Do you think Diana was murdered? And 85.1 per cent of nearly 5,000 people who phoned in replied: Yes.

When a similar question was asked in a 'Sunday Express' poll on the sixth anniversary of her death less than two months ago, only 27 per cent thought she was the victim of a sinister plot.

PTI