Prince Harry's new offensive against the royal family.
In London on Tuesday, March 28, the youngest son of King Charles III accused the Windsors of having hidden information from him about telephone tapping carried out by British tabloids.
At least that's what he said in a deposition as he attended his second consecutive day of a hearing at the High Court in London, in the lawsuits brought with several celebrities against the publisher of the
Daily Mail
, Associated Newspaper (ANL), accused of gathering information unlawfully.
In his witness statement signed on February 24 and which AFP was able to consult, Harry evokes his "difficult relationship with the press" since the death of his mother Diana but explains that "for a member of the institution, politics was
“
never complain, never explain
”
.
He indicates in passing that the royal family dissuaded him from attacking the press in court because "it could open a Pandora's box".
“There is no doubt that the (royal) institution has long withheld information about phone hacking from me, and this only became clear in recent years when I filed my own complaint.”
Surprise appearance in London
Harry, who only travels to the UK exceptionally, made a surprise visit to London to attend the hearing at which ANL is trying to defeat the lawsuits brought by the king's son, but also by singer Elton John or the actress Liz Hurley.
The six plaintiffs all accuse ANL of employing detectives to wiretap them.
The group refuted "totally and without ambiguity these grotesque defamations" which according to him seek to "draw the titles of the
into the scandal of telephone tapping over 30-year-old articles".
The British tabloid press had, in fact, been shaken ten years ago by several scandals of illegal wiretapping practiced from the beginning of the 2000s.
Harry's visit to the UK comes just over a month before the king's coronation on May 6.
Exiled to the United States after leaving the monarchy with a bang in 2020, the Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle have been invited to the ceremony but have not yet made it known publicly whether they will honor the invitation.
The suspense is at its peak.
In video, Meghan and Harry caricatured in
South Park
