LONDON: Martin Bashir, the BBC journalist who tricked princess Diana into giving an explosive interview, on Sunday apologized to Princes William and Harry, but said claims linking his actions to her death were “unreasonable.”
A report by retired senior judge John Dyson published on Thursday found that Bashir commissioned faked bank statements that falsely suggested some of Diana’s closest aides were being paid by the security services to keep tabs on her.
Bashir, 58, then showed them to Diana’s brother Charles Spencer in a successful bid to convince him to arrange a meeting between himself and Diana and earn her trust.
Bashir told the Sunday Times he was “deeply sorry” to Diana’s sons Prince William and Prince Harry.
“I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don’t believe we did,” he told the paper.
But William said Bashir’s actions and the interview had made “a major contribution” to the demise of his parents’ relationship and “contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation” in her final years.
In his own release, Harry said that the deceptive practices had played a part in his mother’s death.
“The ripple effect of a culture of exploitation and unethical practices ultimately took her life,” he said.
Diana died in a Paris car crash in 1997, aged 36.
Bashir disputed the accusations, saying “I don’t feel I can be held responsible for many of the other things that were going on in her life, and the complex issues surrounding those decisions.
“The suggestion I am singularly responsible I think is unreasonable and unfair,” he told the paper.
He argued that the 1995 interview had been conducted on Diana’s terms, and that they remained firm friends after it aired to an audience of 22.8 million people.
“My family and I loved her,” he said, revealing that Diana had visited Bashir’s wife and newborn child in hospital and that the princess threw a birthday party for his eldest child at Kensington Palace.
Bashir has said that he regretted showing Diana’s brother forged documents, but that it had “no bearing” on the revelations aired during the interview.
In it, Diana famously said “there were three people” in her marriage — her, Charles and his long-time mistress and now wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles — and also admitted adultery.
Bashir was little-known at the time but went on to have a high-profile career on US television networks, and interviewed stars such as Michael Jackson.
The pop singer’s family also blame Bashir for his death, saying the fallout from the interview led to him to increasingly depend on drugs.
Bashir worked for the BBC as religion editor until he stepped down just last week, citing ill health, hours before Dyson’s report was submitted to BBC bosses.
Former BBC chief Tony Hall, whom Dyson criticized for his “woefully ineffective” 1996 probe into Bashir’s deception, resigned as chair of Britain’s National Gallery on Saturday.
A government review of the BBC’s funding and governance is due next year, which Home Secretary Priti Patel on Sunday called a “very, very important moment.”
“There’s no question about that trust and confidence has been undermined, and now it’s a time for the BBC to absolutely reflect upon the findings of this report and rebuild that trust and confidence,” she told Sky News.
Shamed BBC journalist apologizes over Princess Diana interview
Shamed BBC journalist apologizes over Princess Diana interview
- ‘I never wanted to harm Diana in any way and I don’t believe we did’
- Prince Harry said that the deceptive practices had played a part in his mother’s death
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
