-Caveat Lector-
A royal dinner that 'all went wrong'
Nepal king died with look of 'utter astonishment,' relative
says
By Pamela Constable
THE WASHINGTON POST
KATMANDU, Nepal, June 5 - It was a pleasant family gathering
in Nepal's royal palace, a soiree in a garden-side billiard
room and adjoining parlor that King Birendra liked to host
every Friday night.
'He [Crown Prince Dipendra] said nothing at all throughout
the whole episode, and there was no expression whatever on his
face. He just fired indiscriminately.'
- RELATIVE
Speaking on condition of anonymity THE KING'S SON,
Crown Prince Dipendra, was tending bar. He mixed one of his
cousins a drink, and the assembled relatives chatted as they
waited for dinner. At about 9 p.m., Dipendra slipped out of
the gathering.
KING DIES FIRST
A short while later, he reappeared, wearing an army
uniform, his cap pulled low over his face and an Uzi
submachine gun and an M-16 assault rifle in his hands, strode
into an adjacent room where his father was sitting and shot
him with one of the powerful automatic weapons. Through the
open door, a witness "could see the king's face with utter
astonishment on it."
This account of Friday night's horrifying palace
massacre was provided today by an immediate relative of that
eyewitness, a member of the royal family. The relative, who
spoke for the witness on condition of anonymity, gave the
first detailed description of how Dipendra, 29, apparently
shot Birendra, 55, and eight other relatives dead, injured
three others and then shot himself in the head. He died Monday
and was cremated that night.
Government officials initially blamed Dipendra for the
killings, but then - as he lay in a coma last weekend after
being named king upon his father's death - palace officials
claimed they were accidental.
While the account provided by the witness's relative
could not be independently verified, because no one else
connected to the palace has come forward to describe what
happened, it not only squares with the first official version
of events, but also contains accurate descriptions of which
family members were killed or wounded and of the surroundings
in which they were shot.
After killing his father, the crown prince sprayed
machine-gun and rifle fire through the sitting rooms for 15
minutes. Everyone was too stunned to react, the relative said,
and remained where they stood or sat as bullets flew around
them and victims fell to the floor. At one point, the relative
said, Dipendra lost control of one gun and it began firing
upward, showering bits of ceiling onto the carpet.
"He said nothing at all throughout the whole episode,
and there was no expression whatever on his face," the
relative said. "He just fired indiscriminately."
At one point Dipendra's mother, Queen Aishwarya, and
his younger brother, Prince Nirajan, followed him into the
garden. "That's when they got shot," the relative said.
When Dipendra moved back inside, his uncle, Prince
Dhirendra, approached him and pleaded, " 'Put the gun down;
you've done enough damage.' That's when he got shot." Two
women, an aunt and a cousin, rushed over to help the wounded
Dhirendra. "That's when they got shot."
As he lay bleeding, the relative said, Dhirendra urged
one of the women to reach into his pocket for a mobile phone
to call for outside help, but she was unable to do so because
she had been shot in the arm and shoulder. Dhirendra died of
his wounds today; the women are recovering in the city's
military hospital.
Finally, Dipendra went out to the garden again, and
more shots were heard. "That must have been the time he was
shooting himself," the relative said. Once the prince stopped
firing and the rooms had fallen silent, the relative said,
"people got together and there was somebody saying, 'This one'
s dead, that one's alive.'"
MOTIVE STILL UNCLEAR
Later that night, according to the relative, one
survivor taken to the military hospital lay in shock, saying,
"It was unbelievable. The crown prince shot everyone."
The witness's account, given by the relative in a joint
interview with The Washington Post and the Times of London,
shed no light on what Dipendra was thinking or feeling as he
prepared to kill. Officials and other sources have said he was
distraught because his mother refused to let him marry
girlfriend Devyani Rana, the daughter of a prominent Nepali
politician and the granddaughter of an Indian maharajah.
But the relative of the eyewitness said that, according
to the witness, there was no discussion of the prince's
wedding plans or romantic life at the Friday night gathering,
no arguments overheard between Dipendra and his parents that
evening, and no sign before the shootings that anything was
wrong.
"Why he did it, we may never know, but this is actually
what happened," the relative said. "It was a routine Friday
night, and it all went wrong."
The government's backpedaling over whether Dipendra
killed his family, and why, has spread public confusion, anger
and rumors of a palace conspiracy and coverup. Violent
anti-government riots erupted here Monday with protesters
demanding to know the truth, and a military curfew was
declared that evening and again today.
Two other relatives of Birendra said in a separate
interview today that they had "no reason to believe" Dipendra
had not been the killer. One, a cousin, said he "wished"
Dipendra were not guilty but that from conversations with
various sources, "I must conclude [he] was the culprit."
Advertisement
Nepal's new king, Birendra's 54-year-old brother,
Gyanendra, has named a three-man commission to investigate the
massacre. But today one proposed member, the leader of Nepal's
parliamentary opposition, pulled out of the commission,
throwing its viability into serious doubt.
At least three survivors of the massacre are in a
military hospital here. They could provide definitive
information about the palace events, but they have made no
statements, have remained inaccessible to the press and
reportedly have not been interviewed by any government
officials.
"The facts are quite clear. All that has to be done is
to ask the survivors," said the royal witness's relative, who
expressed concern that the truth has not been presented by the
government. "The family knows the truth, so if there is some
kind of whitewash, I am sure various family members will speak
up."
RUMORS OF A PLOT
The lack of official information about the slayings has
given rise to rumors that they were not a result of personal
rage but of political plotting against Birendra, who was a
beloved national figure. Some people said they suspect a plot
involving the new king, Gyanendra, and his son, Paras Shah,
who has a reputation for violent behavior.
According to the relative of the eyewitness, however,
Shah, 28, played an important and even heroic role in the
evening's events, moving quickly to hide some teenagers behind
a sofa as the shootings started and arranging to have army
trucks take the wounded survivors to a military hospital
because no ambulance was available.
"He acted very maturely, very calmly," the relative
said. "He must have realized what was happening and he got all
the younger girls . . . behind a settee and kept them there
together."
Unlike Shah, Dipendra was popular among Nepalis, many
of whom do not believe he could have murdered his parents in
cold blood, even in a fit of rage. After his death Monday,
some demonstrators tried to prevent his body from being
whisked to the royal cremation site in an army truck,
demanding that it be borne in a formal procession, as his
relatives' bodies were on Saturday.
Outside the military hospital where Dipendra died, a
crowd toppled brick walls and chopped down trees in anger over
his hasty funeral. "Dipendra was our king, and we are 200
percent sure he did not do this," said Ram Shrestha, 22.
� 2001 The Washington Post Company
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