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Al Fayed attacks UK royals as ‘Dracula family’

LONDON, England (CNN) — The father of Princess Diana’s boyfriend attacked the British Royal family Monday with a series of insults and accusations at the inquest looking into how the couple died.

Mohamed Al Fayed, father of Dodi, repeated his allegations of a massive cover-up involving the Royal family, paparazzi and for the first time Diana’s sister. He has previously included British intelligence services in the alleged plot.

Al Fayed, who spent most of the day in the witness box, let out a torrent of allegations that members of the royal family were racist.

He has previously blamed Prince Philip for the deaths, insisting that the royal family couldn’t bear the prospect of a Muslim marrying the princess.

Diana suffered for 20 years from this Dracula family, Al Fayed said Monday.

I will not rest until I die. If I lose everything to find the truth, Al Fayed, told the court.

Al Fayed, owner of London’s famed Harrods department store, began his testimony by reading a statement saying Diana told him in July 1997, the month before the crash, that she feared for her life. Watch Al-Fayed have his day in court.

He said Diana told him her ex-husband Prince Charles, and the queen’s husband Prince Philip, wanted to get rid of her.

Diana said she had a wooden box with her initials on it containing all the details about why she feared for her life, Al Fayed said. He added she told him that if anything ever happened to her, he needed to know about the box.

After the crash, however, the contents of the box were stolen before he could get to them, he said.

For the first time Al Fayed implicated Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, in the alleged cover-up. He said he spoke to her about the wooden box after the crash, but the fact that the contents were later stolen is evidence that she tried to conceal them, he said.

Al Fayed has previously said that Diana was pregnant with Dodi’s child at the time of the crash, although British and French police investigations into the crash have discounted this.

At the inquest, Al Fayed testified that Diana and Dodi were engaged and planned an announcement the Monday after the crash.

When an inquest lawyer challenged Al Fayed as to why he didn’t tell everybody once he knew about the alleged engagement, Al Fayed claimed he had only just found out himself.

It was one hour before they were murdered. Am I going to announce it after they were dead?

John Macnamara, the former head of security for Al Fayed, last week said at at the inquest that he did not he believe Prince Philip was involved in a conspiracy to kill the couple.

During the five-month inquest, witnesses have been questioned about a mysterious white Fiat Uno which some witnesses reported seeing shortly before the crash but which was never traced.

Al Fayed said the car belonged to paparazzo James Andanson, who did own a white Fiat Uno. Al Fayed said Andanson, who was found dead two years later in a burned-out car, was part of the murder plot and assassinated to cover up his role.

The inquest has also heard testimony about whether the chauffeur, Henri Paul, was drunk on the night of the crash.

Al Fayed claimed Paul was sober and that French investigators botched the tests, though he did not give evidence to support the claim. Instead he alleged a coverup by two French investigators: Dominique Lecomte, who conducted the post-mortem on Paul, and Gilbert Pepin, who tested Paul’s blood.

Al Fayed also questioned the delay in transporting Diana to a hospital after the crash, adding she might have survived had she gotten treatment sooner.

He also alleged that MI6, Britain’s foreign Intelligence Service, infiltrated the British tax service, as well as the Home Office — the UK’s interior ministry — and continued to conspire against him. Al Fayed said the Home Office denied him a passport as part of the plot.

The inquest is required under British law whenever someone dies in suspicious, sudden, or unexplained circumstances but it will only decide how they died and not lay blame.

It began in October 2007 — after the French and British investigations into the crash concluded — and is expected to last six months.
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Former President Bush: Attacks on McCain’s record ‘absurd’

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) — Former President Bush endorsed John McCain on Monday and defended the conservative record of the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Bush’s endorsement was another sign that the GOP’s establishment is coalescing around the Arizona senator.

At this critical time in history … the United States of America cannot be allowed to falter, the 41st president said in Houston, Texas. No one is better to lead our nation in these trying times than Senator John McCain.

His character was forged in the crucible of war, Bush said, referring to McCain’s experience as a Navy pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Bush served as a Navy pilot during World War II. Like McCain, Bush was shot down in combat.

Few men walking among us have sacrificed so much for the cause of human freedom, Bush said.

I believe now is the right time for me to help John in his effort to start building the broad-based coalition it’ll take for our conservative values to carry the White House this fall, the former president said.

After Bush spoke, McCain said that his endorsement would help me enormously in the process of uniting our party and moving forward.

McCain is working to win the support the party’s conservative base, many of whom were angered by the positions the Arizona Republican took on immigration, campaign finance and other issues as well as his willingness to work with Democrats to pass legislation.

Bush said the criticism of McCain’s record by some conservatives was absurd and grossly unfair.

He’s got a record that everybody can analyze in the Senate, a sound, conservative record, and yet he’s not above reaching out to the other side, he said.

The former president, who served as President Reagan’s vice president, noted that Reagan was attacked by ultra-right activists who said his record was not conservative enough when he ran for president in 1980.

On Sunday, McCain brought memories of Bush’s infamous broken promise not to raise taxes after the 2008 candidate was asked whether he would make a similar pledge.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week, McCain said he would not increase taxes under any circumstances and mentioned several alternatives, including lowering interest rates and corporate tax rates if our economy continues to deteriorate.

There’s a lot of things that I would think we should do to relieve that burden, including, obviously, as we all know, simplification of the tax code, he said.

Despite Bush’s strong ties to the party’s revered Reagan legacy, those links haven’t endeared him to the GOP’s conservative wing. The Bush endorsement won’t necessarily help McCain with values voters, who have always suspected that Bush the elder was not wholly committed to the anti-abortion cause.

Regarding his Supreme Court choices, Bush 41’s tenure gave rise to a phrase that has become part of the conservative lexicon: No more Souters, a reference to Bush Supreme Court nominee David Souter, a then-relative unknown who proved to be a high court liberal.

After Monday’s endorsement, McCain, who has 830 of the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination, heads to Wisconsin, where his rival Mike Huckabee, who has 217 delegates, is already campaigning.

McCain strategists see the Bush endorsement as a way to send another message to the former Arkansas governor to exit the race. The Bush nod also may bolster McCain in Texas, where a strong bloc of politically active social conservatives could embarrass him in the state’s March 4 primary.

On Thursday, former GOP rival Mitt Romney threw his support behind McCain, calling him a true American hero capable of leading our country in this dangerous hour. Watch the two former rivals shake hands

A source involved in the internal deliberations with Romney said the former Massachusetts governor concluded that it’s time for the party to unite and focus on a difficult fall election environment.

Romney will release his delegates to McCain, meaning he will encourage them to get behind McCain’s candidacy, the source said.

Romney had collected 286 delegates before he suspended his campaign two weeks ago.

Those delegates would put McCain less than 100 delegates away from securing the nomination.

McCain appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live on Thursday and defended his statement that U.S. troops could spend maybe 100 years in Iraq. The senator said he was referring to a military presence similar to what the nation has in places like Japan, Germany and South Korea.

It’s not a matter of how long we’re in Iraq; it’s if we succeed or not, McCain said, adding that Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal — that means chaos; that means genocide; that means undoing all the success we’ve achieved and al Qaeda tells the world they defeated the United States of America.
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Kosovo pushes for global recognition

NEW YORK (CNN) — Kosovo on Monday began its campaign for global recognition a day after declaring independence from Serbia, but bitter divisions in the European Union and United Nations raised the specter of conflict over the Balkan territory.

Facing severe economic problems and high unemployment, Kosovo is banking on the support of Western powers including the United States and key EU nations to give it immediate backing.

But while the move is broadly favored by the West, U.N. Security Council members Russia and China have expressed outright opposition and grave concern over Kosovo’s unilateral decision.

Serbia insists it will not respond with violence to Kosovo’s sovereignty claim, although it refuses to recognize the move.

In the Serb-dominated northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica, scores of Kosovo Serbs took to the streets waving Seriban flags in a demonstration against independence.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to meet to discuss the issue later Monday, with Serbian President Boris Tadic due to address the body on the breakaway his country bitterly opposes.

Asked on Monday whether the United States — which has expressed support for Kosovo’s seccession — would officially recognize Kosovo, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, Stay tuned. Watch mixed reaction to independence declaration

European Union foreign ministers were Monday also due to discuss the independence declaration, with several members, including Spain, who fear it will send signals to separatists withing their own borders, likely to oppose.

Our position is that this declaration should be disregarded by the international community, as well as by the head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin said on Sunday.

In Beijing Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao expressed grave concern over Kosovo move for independence.

Kosovo’s unilateral act can produce a series of results that will lead to seriously negative influence on peace and stability in the Balkan region … Liu said, according to China’s Xinhua news agency. He called on Kosovo and Serbia to seek a solution under international law.

Fireworks lit the skies and crowds filled the streets of Kosovo’s capital Sunday after the territory’s parliament declared independence from Serbia.

The day has come, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former separatist guerrilla leader, told his parliament. From this day onwards, Kosovo is proud, independent and free. Watch how U.N. is divided over Kosovo’s future

The province has been under U.N. administration and patrolled by NATO troops since a 1999 bombing campaign that halted a Serb-led campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.

We are waiting instructions from New York how to react to it, U.N. Mission in Kosovo chief Joachim Rucker told CNN from the capital, Pristina, Monday, referring to the declaration. But I’m not worried really.

Thousands of people swarmed Pristina’s streets ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary declaration, singing, dancing and holding signs in freezing wind after the vote was announced. But Serbs consider the territory the cradle of their civilization, and protesters clashed with police outside the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade as the declaration was issued.

Serbia said it will not oppose independence with violence, but Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said his country will never accept the establishment of a false country on its territory.

Anything and everything that we couldn’t achieve today will be obtained by new generations of Serbian people in the future, Kostunica said Sunday in a televised address.

Citizens of Serbia, we have to come together and show the whole world that we do not acknowledge the creation of a false state in our territory. The violence that has been perpetrated upon Serbia is very obvious.

Russia expressed similar concerns at Sunday’s emergency Security Council meeting in New York.

Our concern is for the safety of Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo, Churkin stated, adding that Russia will strongly warn against any attempts at repressive measures should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with this unilateral proclamation of independence.

About 100,000 Serbs still live in Kosovo, making up about 5 percent of the population, and Kostunica said Serbs have been killed or lost their land in the eight-plus years the country has been under international rule. But Fatmir Sejdiu, the nascent republic’s president, pledged to create a nation where all citizens of all ethnicities feel appreciated.

Today is probably a day of trepidation for some of you, but your property and your rights will be respected in the future, he said.

Former U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who led the NATO alliance during the 1999 conflict, said There was no way beyond moving to this step. But he urged the international community to work with Serbia to keep the country moving toward integration with Europe and to help them understand their situation.

I’m very sad that the Serbs are unable to understand what’s happened, Clark told CNN. But the magnitude of Serb repression of the Albanian majority there and the violence that accompanied the ethnic cleansing in 1998 and 1999 was just so overwhelming that I think the Serb people have to understand that the Albanians themselves have to have this separation.

Thaci said Kosovo’s declaration of independence marks the end of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, which triggered years of bloodshed across the Balkans.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched a crackdown against ethnic Albanian insurgents led by Thaci in 1998 and refused to yield to Western pressure to halt the campaign. When NATO responded by launching airstrikes against Serbia and Montenegro, the last remaining Yugoslav republics, Yugoslav troops drove hundreds of thousands of Kosovars out of the region and killed thousands more.

Milosevic died in 2005 while awaiting trial for war crimes before a U.N. tribunal in The Hague.

The United States and leading European nations, including France, Britain and Germany, have supported Kosovo’s move toward independence. But Russia, the Serbs’ historical ally, has opposed independence, fearing it would incite other separatist movements in its backyard.

But no country supported the Russian call for the U.N. to declare Sunday’s declaration null and void, said Sir John Sawers, the British ambassador to the world body.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged all parties to refrain from any actions or statements that could endanger peace, incite violence or jeopardize security in Kosovo and the region.

The European Union decided Saturday to launch a mission of about 2,000 police and judicial officers to replace the U.N. mission that has controlled the province since 1999. And U.S. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States had noted that Kosovo had declared its independence and was reviewing the issue.
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University shooter’s girlfriend: ‘I couldn’t believe it’

WONDER LAKE, Illinois (CNN) — The girlfriend of the gunman who killed five people and then himself at Northern Illinois University last Thursday told CNN there was no indication he was planning something.

He wasn’t erratic. He wasn’t delusional. He was Steve; he was normal, Jessica Baty tearfully said in an exclusive interview Sunday.

Baty, 28, said she dated Steven Kazmierczak off and on for two years and had most recently been living with him.

He was a worrier, she said. He once told her he had obsessive-compulsive tendencies and that his parents committed him as a teen to a group home because he was unruly and used to cut himself, she said.

He was worried about everything, he worried about me.

But, she added, that he had never exhibited self-destructive behavior during their time together. Everybody has a past, and everybody goes through hard times, Baty said.

Kazmierczak had been seeing a psychiatrist on a monthly basis, Baty said. She said he was taking an anti-depressant, but he had stopped taking the medication three weeks ago because it made him feel like a zombie.

He wasn’t acting erratic, she said. He was just a little quicker to get annoyed. Watch as Baty explains why she still loves NIU gunman

Police say Kazmierczak burst into an NIU geology class on February 14 and opened fire with at least a shotgun and two handguns, killing five students while dozens fled for their lives.

Authorities were on the scene within a few minutes, but by the time they reached the classroom, Kazmierczak, 27, had shot himself to death.

Baty knew her boyfriend had purchased at least two guns. He told her they were for home protection.

The day of the shooting, Baty was in class at the University of Illinois where she and Kazmierczak had transferred from NIU. He was pursuing a master’s degree in sociology, and she is going for a master’s in social work. He planned to study law and had signed up to take the LSAT test, she said. She is hoping to get her doctorate in social work.

The students in her class began to talk about a mass shooting taking place at NIU in DeKalb, Illinois.

Oblivious that Kazmierczak could have anything to do with it, Baty said she had tried calling him several times Thursday, but her calls went directly into his voice mail.

I was worried about him because he was supposed to come to class, she said. He never missed a class.

When Baty learned that Kazmierczak was the shooter, she said, I couldn’t believe it.

I said, ‘No, you have the wrong person. He’s not in DeKalb.’ He wasn’t supposed to be there. He was on his way home to see me. It didn’t make any sense at all.

She had last seen him Monday morning, when he told her he was planning to drive north to visit his ill godfather who he had not seen in a long time.

Kazmierczak told me that he loved me and that he would see me on Thursday and missed me, she said. That whole week I talked to him; he sounded fine.

The Steven I know and love was not the man that walked into that building, she said. He was anything but a monster. He was probably the nicest, most caring person ever.

She said she was talking to the news media about Kazmierczak because, He cannot be defined by his last actions. There was so much more than that.

Since Thursday, Baty said authorities have intercepted several packages Kazmierczak sent her, including several items such as: the book The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietszche; a textbook for her class about serial killers; a package with a gun holster and bullets; a new cell phone that she had told him she wanted and about $100 in cash.

She read the contents of a note he sent to her.

You are the best Jessica! it read. You’ve done so much for me, and I truly do love you. You will make an excellent psychologist or social worker someday! Don’t forget about me! Love, Steven Kazmierczak. Watch Baty read the letter Kazmierczak sent to her

But there was no letter explaining the NIU slayings.

I’m praying that there’s another one somewhere that tells why and what he was thinking and what he was feeling and why he wouldn’t want me to help him, she said.

Though the two had chosen to transfer to the University of Illinois, there was no hard feelings [toward NIU], she said. He said all the time how grateful he was that he went there.

She said she had never known her boyfriend to lie: He was always open and honest. We didn’t keep anything from each other.

I would have helped him, I would have done something for him, Baty said. Even last week, when the two talked every night until the killings, she was not alarmed.

It was during their last conversation, a few minutes past midnight Wednesday, that she got her first inkling that something was amiss, she said. He told me not to forget about him and he told me that he would see me tomorrow, and when we got off the phone he said ‘Good-bye.’ He never said good-bye.

Shaking and crying, her family at her side during the interview, Baty said she still loves the man she met in a hallway at NIU when they were both undergraduate students.

Baty said she feels sorry for the victims and their families and friends. I know what they’re going through, and I just can’t tell them how sorry I am, she said. But, she added, He was a victim, too, and I know they probably won’t want to hear that, but he was.

Like comments from teachers which have been widely reported, she said Kazmierczak was an achiever who always tried to get ahead in class and seemed committed to criminal justice issues.

Pictures of their relationship don’t betray anything odd. They are scenes of the two of them smiling on Florida beaches, on golf courses and having fun at Disney World.

Teachers and others who knew Kazmierczak have said he was fascinated with prison culture. In 2006, when he was a student at NIU, police said, he worked on a graduate paper that described his interest in corrections, political violence and peace and social justice.

The paper said Kazmierczak was co-authoring a manuscript on the role of religion in the formation of early prisons in the United States.

I didn’t think he was crazy, said Baty, sobbing. I still love him. E-mail to a friend

CNN’s Todd Schwarzschild contributed to this report.

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Tornados hit South; snow, freezing rain hit Midwest

PRATTVILLE, Alabama (AP) — Severe weather howled through much of the nation Sunday, producing damaging tornadoes in the South that injured nearly 30 people and treating winter-weary parts of the Midwest to freezing rain, snow and flooding.

A tornado damaged or destroyed about 200 homes and businesses in Prattville, Alabama, outside Montgomery, where Mayor Jim Byard said crews searched for people trapped in the wreckage.

No fatalities were immediately reported, but two people were critically injured, said Fire Department official Dallis Johnson. Twenty-seven people had minor injuries, officials said.

It’s very possible we may have more injuries, he said, saying that some trapped people had been rescued.

A 35-bed mobile hospital unit was set up outside a Kmart to treat victims with minor to moderate injuries so that hospitals could take those with serious injuries, Dr. Steve Allen said.

Toppled utility poles and storm debris littered the area, northwest of Montgomery about five miles off Interstate 65. Shelters opened at churches, and school buses shuttled storm victims out of the stricken area to the city center.

David Shoupe, 18, assistant manager at Palm Beach Tan, said he and a co-worker barely made it into a laundry room before the roof fell in and the wind tossed shopping carts aloft.

Soon as we turned the corner, the roof collapsed everywhere except the laundry room, Shoupe said, standing beside his white Lexus, with a front windshield cracked by debris and the other windows shattered.

About 9,000 homes and businesses lost power in Prattville after storms swept across the South, damaging homes elsewhere in Alabama and in the Florida Panhandle.

A tornado destroyed four homes in Escambia County, Florida, with several others damaged, county and National Weather Service officials said. Across the border in Escambia County, Alabama, two houses were destroyed by a possible tornado in rural Dixie, the Weather Service said.

The storm damaged some structures in Covington County, Alabama, and toppled trees, said Jeremie Shaffer, assistant director of the county emergency management agency.

The National Weather Service warned of tornado threats and winds of 70 mph as the storm system moved into Georgia.

Freezing rain and snow fell across the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin, still weary from a major snowstorm that stranded hundreds of motorists and snarled travel for days.

Numerous crashes were reported, and authorities urged people to stay off roads. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for much of Iowa and Wisconsin, as well as flood warnings in parts of the two states.

The conditions forced shopping malls, libraries and churches to close. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama postponed or canceled campaign stops ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Heavy snow and slush closed Kansas City International Airport for almost six hours, the longest closure in its 35-year history, authorities said. Dozens of flights were canceled.

The severe weather in the South comes on the heels of a tornado outbreak this month that killed more than 50 people in several states, including Alabama.
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