In a move that raises fresh questions over transatlantic agreements on intelligence-sharing, the surveillance arm of the US has admitted listening to her conversations as she stayed at the Ritz hotel, but failed to notify MI6. Stevens is understood to have been assured that the 39 classified documents detailing Diana's final conversations did not reveal anything sinister or contain material that might help explain her death.

Scotland Yard's inquiry, published this Thursday, also throws up further intelligence links with the Princess of Wales on the night she died. The driver of the Mercedes, Henri Paul, was in the pay of the French equivalent of M15. Stevens traced £100,000 he had amassed in 14 French bank accounts though no payments have been linked to Diana's death.

Stevens's conclusion is that Diana, her companion Dodi Fayed, and Paul himself died in an accident caused by Paul driving too fast through the Pont de l'Alma underpass in Paris while under the influence of drink. The car was being pursued by photographers at the time.

Tests have confirmed that Paul was more than three times over the French drink-drive limit and was travelling at 'excessive' speed. The inquiry will quash a number of conspiracy theories that have circulated since 31 August 1997, among them that Diana was pregnant. It also found no evidence that the princess was planning to get engaged to Dodi, son of Mohamed Fayed.

The Harrods tycoon believes that Paul's blood samples were swapped to portray him as a drunk in an elaborate cover-up by the establishment to stop Diana marrying Dodi, a Muslim.

Stevens is expected to concede that while there was a mix-up it was an accident and that the original French post-mortem which found that Paul was three-times over the French drink-drive limit was correct.

He is also expected to discount the role of the white Fiat Uno which struck Diana's car shortly before the crash, even though British police officers have failed to track down the vehicle which left paintwork on the black Mercedes.

The inquiry will support the findings of the original French accident inquiry in criticising the paparazzi as a possible reason for encouraging Paul to speed. The 'bright light' theory - the claim that the driver was deliberately blinded by a beam immediately before the crash - is also dismissed by Stevens.

However the Association of Chief Police Officers says a full debate on the technology's impact on privacy will be needed before they can be installed in the UK.

Already the smart cameras are live in 300 sites across Holland, where they currently detect the conversations of people in shops, city centres, jails and benefit offices.

According to The Sunday Times, which has met the Dutch makers of the technology, one six week-trial in Groningen resulted in 70 genuine alarms, yielding a total of four arrests.

Derek can der Vorst, director of Sound Intelligence, told the paper that the devices are technically capable of recording 24 hours a day.

As a result, exactly how long they are in operation "really depends on the privacy laws in a particular country," he said.

Der Vorst added: "The cameras work on the principle that in an aggressive situation the pitch goes up and the words are spoken faster.

"The voice is not the normal flat tone, but vibrates. It is these subtle changes that our audio cameras pick up on."

Responding to a future deployment in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office has said the audio cameras would be treated, under law, in the same way as CCTV footage.

Under the IOC's code, audio can be used on the grounds it detects and prevents crime, or apprehends and prosecutes the offenders.

However, audio cannot be used for recording private conversations or conversations between staff members, as enforced under the first and third Data Protection principles.

In a current guide on how employers should install and use CCTV, the Commissioner says: "If the equipment has a sound recording facility, this should not be used to record conversations between members of the public."

Greame Garrard, chairman of the chief police officers' video and CCTV working group, reportedly said using audio-enabled CCTV would mark a "new step" for surveillance in the UK.

"We would need to have a debate as to whether or not this is something the public think would be a reasonable use of technology," he told the ST.

His comments come as Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, published a report into Britain's surveillance society - defined as "one where technology is extensively and routinely used to track and record our activities and movements."

In a section of the report entitled 'what's wrong with a surveillance society?,' the IOC's draw attention to an observation made after September 11, 2001.

"Surveillance fosters suspicion," said David Leyon, a leading sociologist and contributing author to the report.

"The employer who installs keystroke monitors at workstations, or GPS devices in service vehicles is saying that they do not trust their employees.

"Social relationships depend on trust and permitting ourselves to undermine it in this way seems like slow social suicide."

In supporting notes, another post-9/11 study is cited for proposing cameras that detect "just about anything" the state may need to know, including "the conversations of pedestrians."

The IOC responded: "The more that states, organisations, communities and people become dependent on surveillance technologies, the more there is an apparent 'lock-in' which prevents other options from being considered, and a comprehension gap which increases a dependence on expertise outside the democratic system.

"ID cards are a key case in point and will inevitably increase our reliance on those providing both technological and commercial expertise."

Ashaari spent two years in prison in the 1990s when Al-Arqam was banned after having won 10,000 followers and up to 100,000 sympathisers, including government officials.

Suspicions can only be raised by the life-sized portrait of the turbaned and bearded Ashaari, complete with his poems, that greets visitors walking into the Rufaqa commune in Rawang, just north of Kuala Lumpur.

But Rufaqa, which has operations in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Jordan, says it has no agenda except to preach for Islam and build its multi-million-dollar businesses.

"The allegations by former members that we have a hidden agenda is a total lie," Rufaqa company secretary Zulkifli Awang Kechik said in a statement. "We face a lot of tests from Allah while we are in this world."

The cult's bizarre teachings include a promise to absolve members' sins by transferring them to Ashaari, who is believed to be able to defer death, and the belief that an Islamic messiah from the east will appear just ahead of a prophesied doomsday.

This teaching is offensive to many Muslims, who say it contradicts the Koran.

DEVIANT TEACHINGS

In recent weeks, religious police in the central state of Selangor have arrested about 100 members of Rufaqa, including two top officials, as details of the sect's teachings have emerged.

"We plan to charge 12 of them by this month," said Fakhrul Azam Yahya, a spokesman for the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department, adding they could be charged with deviant teachings.

Selangor will also decide on Dec. 21 whether to ban Rufaqa. All those arrested have since been released on bail.

The sprawling four-storey complex in Rawang boasts a baker's shop, a school, a mosque, a car workshop, a maternity clinic, a printing shop, a grocery, a kindergarten and restaurants.

One woman running a clinic said Rufaqa paid a token salary but took care of her lodging, food and other essentials. "We don't mind. I get peace of mind here," said Mimi, 57, who left her family in Kuala Lumpur to live in the commune.

With 700 companies under its wings, Rufaqa was founded in 1997 by Ashaari after the government banned Al-Arqam, or "the Numbers", movement. The government said then that Al-Arqam was training armed warriors.

Ashaari said recently he was "too disillusioned" to revive Al-Arqam, which claimed to have assets worth 300 million ringgit ($84.4 million) at the height of its activities in the late 1980s.

"When Rufaqa grew, the issue of my trying to revive the movement came up," Ashaari, 69, told the New Straits Times newspaper. "Do not confuse developing a legitimate enterprise with reviving the movement."

Nicknamed "Abuya" (father), Ashaari has four wives and 37 children. But he and his family don't live in the commune, preferring instead their several homes scattered across two Malaysian states.

Ashaari has not been personally investigated by the authorities this time around.

Both religious and political concerns are behind the government crackdown on Ashaari's followers, analysts say.

"The current administration can't afford to allow such movements to undermine its position," said political analyst Yahaya Ismail. "This is why they are going all out."

But some Malay Muslims feel the government's action against the movement could be a bit high-handed. "The followers don't go around harming people, but just focusing on their businesses," said Zaki Usman, a 48-year-old advertising executive in Kuala Lumpur.