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Army instructor taunted Harry over Diana's death saying she was pregnant with 'Muslim baby'
6 January 2023, 18:01 | Updated: 9 January 2023, 15:23
An army instructor taunted Harry about Diana's death during his training, saying she was carrying a "Muslim baby" when she died, the duke has claimed.
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The insult was flung at the royal when he underwent training for dealing with being abducted.
The instructor, a woman dressed in a headscarf, who abused him later said sorry for it.
In his upcoming book Spare, Harry wrote that "she was talking about my mother. She said: "Your mother was pregnant when she died", calling it a "Muslim baby" – a reference to Dodi Fayed, who was in a relationship with Diana and died in the crash in Paris.
The exercise took place on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall. A group wearing camouflaged jackets and balaclavas approached, which he said he feared could have been the IRA.
He was blindfolded and sent to a building where he went 72 hours without being able to sleep.
As part of the intense training, he was stripped naked and instructors playing the role of his abductors "pointed at our c***s, and talked endlessly about how small they were".
He added: "An instructor apologised for what they had said about my mother.
"I found out that two other soldiers who had done the same exercise had gone crazy."
The training is deliberately intense to prepare soldiers for kidnappings or capture.
A post-mortem found Diana was not pregnant but it formed part of the conspiracies about her death.
Harry's military recollections have proved controversial, after he described of killing 25 members of the Taliban and compared them to chess pieces being taken off the board.
His comments managed the rare feat of uniting British veterans and the militant group in agreement that they were inappropriate.
Former officers said it is not the way service personnel behave, while the Taliban criticised his comparison to the board game.
One militant even reportedly branded him a "big mouth loser" over his kill count claim.