U.S. agency denies bugging Diana's phone

The U.S. National Security Agency, known for intercepting online and telephone communications, has denied it targeted the late Princess Wales's phone conversations as part of an eavesdropping mission.

The NSA statement was in response to British media reports that secret tapings of Diana surfaced during a British probe into the car crash that killed her in 1997.

The London Observer newspaper reported that on the night of her death, U.S. authorities had a wiretap on Diana's phone, without the knowledgeof the agency's British counterparts.

According to the report, the NSA assured British officials the secret recordings bore no relation to the car accident that claimed her life, nor did it shed any new light on her death.

Although the NSA says it has 39 classified documents that make reference to Diana, the agency insists Diana was never thesubject of any monitoring. The documents were released in 1998 after a Freedom of Information request, the NSA noted.

The agency monitors communications and conducts wiretapping in the event of a suspected threat against the U.S., but it does not publicly disclose its activities.

Diana, 36, was riding in a car with her friend Dodi Fayed, 42, when their driver crashed at high speed in a Paris tunnel. An investigation later concluded the driver, Henri Paul,was drunk.

An official British report into the crash should be published Thursday and is expected to rule the death was an accident, the Observer reported.