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Britain's Prince Harry in hair-raising mystery
LONDON (Reuters) -- Prince Harry, the teenage son of the late Princess Diana, has been warned of a plot to steal some of his hair in a bid to obtain a sample of his DNA genetic makeup, a Sunday newspaper reported. Britain's Sunday Times said police had been alerted after the private secretary of Prince Charles, Harry's father and the heir to the throne, received a letter from a former police officer's lawyer detailing the plans. Neither the police nor Prince Charles's staff would comment on the matter. Scientists can carry out DNA tests on minute samples of hair, skin or saliva to establish a blood relationship between two individuals. Harry, 18 and famous for his unruly shock of red hair, is the younger of Diana's two sons with her former husband Charles. He has become as much of a heart-throb with teenage girls as his blond older brother Prince William. Diana, who died in a 1997 Paris car crash, and Charles divorced after revelations of adultery on both sides -- he with Camilla Parker Bowles and she with former British army officer James Hewitt. In September, Hewitt categorically denied in a newspaper interview that he was Harry's real father in a bid to dispel long-standing rumours. "I have been aware for a while that the issue of Harry's paternity has been a major talking point. There really is no possibility whatsoever that I am Harry's father," he told the Sunday Mirror, adding that his affair with Diana had begun when Harry was a toddler. The Sunday Times, citing unnamed sources close to St James's Palace, Prince Charles's London residence, said the letter claimed that a media organisation had hired a private detective to obtain some of Harry's hair. One part of the plan was to engineer an encounter between Harry, who is still at school at Eton, and an attractive young woman, who would pluck some hair from his head, the paper said. The hair-snatching plot is the latest in a series of bizarre stories about the royal family to make headlines in recent weeks. The collapse of the theft trial of Diana's former butler Paul Burrell led to a flood of embarrassing allegations that have tarnished Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee year. During the trial, the court was told that Diana kept Hewitt's signet ring in a locked box in her sitting room and that she had taped allegations of gay rape involving two royal servants. Copyright 2002 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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