It's a Conspiracy!

Earlier this year, an official inquest began to review the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana in 1997. In Israel, a committee was formed in an effort to secure the release of Yigal Amir, the convicted killer of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. These two seemingly unconnected events have something in common: the belief that the official explanation for a shocking occurrence is not entirely transparent.

Diana's fans cite several possibilities, from an alleged pregnancy to a vengeful royal family, to justify their belief in a plot. In Israel, several books have been published to discuss the idea of an apparent assassination attempt gone wrong, and the alleged involvement of prominent left-wing and right-wing figures.

These are but two of numerous examples whereby public opinion appears to prefer conspiracy theories to the "official" explanations offered by governments and the mainstream media. The list includes:

John F. Kennedy (1963)

The details of the "official story" surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy are well known. The government of Lyndon B. Johnson established the Warren Commission to review the assassination. Its conclusion -- Lee Harvey Oswald fired a rifle from a book depository in Dallas -- was widely accepted for decades. The thought of a conspiracy was revived in the early 1990s, thanks to an Oliver Stone film that focused on the work of attorney Jim Garrison and the footage captured by amateur filmmaker Abraham Zapruder.

In 2003, 40 years after Kennedy was shot, seven in 10 Americans rejected the lone gunman version, and pointed to a broader plot. In addition, 51 per cent claimed there was another shooter in Dallas that day, and 68 per cent asserted that there was an official coverup.

Luis Carlos Galán (1989)

In August 1989, Luis Carlos Galán was assassinated at a campaign event in Bogotá. Galán was the presidential candidate of the Liberal Party (PLC), and one of its most progressive politicians. While Colombian authorities concluded that Pablo Escobar -- the head of the Medellín drug cartel -- had planned Galán's murder, questions about other possible culprits lingered on for years, particularly after Escobar's own death in 1993.

In 2005, one of Escobar's close collaborators, John Jairo Velásquez, said the presidential candidate's assassination had been suggested to the cartel chief by former congressman and PLC member Alberto Santofimio. Colombian authorities quickly detained Santofimio, and later tried him. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

The Colombian electorate was disheartened by the demise of one of its most attractive politicians. Barely two in five registered voters showed up at the polling stations in 1990, when César Gaviria -- who took over as the PLC nominee -- won the election. In 2005, more than three in four Colombians thought there is more to Galán's demise than Santofimio's collusion with Escobar, suggesting there could be other politicians involved in the assassination.

Luis Donaldo Colosio (1994)

In March 1994, ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was gunned down after a campaign rally in Tijuana. With the election only five months away, the PRI -- which had ruled Mexico since the end of the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s -- scrambled to find a suitable replacement and settled on Colosio's campaign manager: former education secretary Ernesto Zedillo. In the end, Zedillo won the ballot and gave the PRI its last six-year term in power.

Mario Aburto Martínez was detained shortly after shooting Colosio. He was presented to the media the next morning, clean-shaven and sporting a new haircut, which led to allegations that he was not the true culprit. For years, different prosecutors spun theories about a possible conspiracy involving Colosio's bodyguards, who seemed to clear the path for the lone gunman to commit the murder. Still, most of the anger was directed at then-president Carlos Salinas, who hand picked Colosio as his successor (as was the custom at the time), but became increasingly upset at the candidate's acknowledgement of economic disparities and corruption.

In 2004, a decade after Colosio was killed, only five per cent of respondents to a poll believed the assassination was the work of a lone gunman, with 92 per cent pointing to a conspiracy. Aburto is still in jail, serving a 40-year sentence and refusing to directly address his motives.

Yitzhak Rabin (1995)

In November 1995, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin finished a speech during a peace rally in Tel Aviv, when Jewish law student Yigal Amir approached him and fired his gun three times. Rabin had angered a sector of the Israeli population by engaging in peace talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and Amir claimed to be acting alone and on the "orders of God."

Among the many pieces of information that have been used to discuss the possibility of a plot are a seven-and-a-half-minute video which purportedly shows Amir shooting "blanks," and records that show Rabin's motorcade -- carrying a wounded prime minister in a cordoned-off area -- taking 22 minutes to reach the nearest hospital. Earlier this year, only 28 per cent of Israelis believed that there was nobody involved in Rabin's assassination but Amir.

Princess Diana (1997)

On the last day of August 1997, Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed died in a car crash. The first reports from Paris focused on the possibility of a chase involving paparazzi intent on securing a picture of the mother of a future King of England and her Muslim companion.

For Diana's followers, there had to be something more to explain the princess's demise than just a collision. As the official inquest began in London, 34 per cent of respondents thought Diana's death was not an accident. Very few Britons expect the investigation to answer all of the lingering questions -- only 18 per cent of respondents expect to know the truth after the proceedings are over.

Alexander Litvinenko (2006)

In one of the most bizarre news stories to hit the airwaves late last year, a former KGB agent lied in a British hospital, slowly succumbing to polonium-210 radiation poisoning. From his death bed, Alexander Litvinenko blamed current Russian president (and fellow KGB alumnus) Vladimir Putin for his demise. In January 2007, 60 per cent of Russians said the perpetrators of Litvinenko's murder will not be found.

The ensuing investigation of the British government called for the extradition of former intelligence agent Andrei Lugovoi -- an impossibility under the terms of the current Russian constitution. Russia has said it would be willing to try Lugovoi, if compelling evidence is presented.