The Washington Post Version

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 6, 2001; Page A21

KATMANDU, Nepal, June 5 -

It was a pleasant family gathering in Nepal'sroyal palace, a soiree in a garden-side billiard room and adjoining parlor thatKing Birendra liked to host every Friday night.

The king's son, Crown Prince Dipendra, was tending bar. He mixed one of hiscousins a drink, and the assembled relatives chatted as they waited for dinner.At about 9 p.m., Dipendra slipped out of the gathering.

A short while later, he reappeared, wearing an army uniform, his cap pulledlow over his face and an Uzi submachine gun and an M-16 assault rifle in hishands. Dipendra strode into an adjacent room where his father was sitting andshot him with one of the powerful automatic weapons. Through the open door, awitness "could see the king's face with utter astonishment on it."

This account of Friday night's horrifying palace massacre was provided todayby an immediate relative of that eyewitness, a member of the royal family. Therelative, who spoke for the witness on condition of anonymity, gave the firstdetailed description of how Dipendra, 29, apparently shot Birendra, 55, andeight other relatives dead, injured three others and then shot himself in thehead. 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 beindependently verified, because no one else connected to the palace has comeforward to describe what happened, it not only squares with the first officialversion of events, but also contains accurate descriptions of which familymembers 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 firethrough the sitting rooms for 15 minutes. Everyone was too stunned to react, therelative said, and remained where they stood or sat as bullets flew around themand victims fell to the floor. At one point, the relative said, Dipendra lostcontrol of one gun and it began firing upward, showering bits of ceiling ontothe carpet.

"He said nothing at all throughout the whole episode, and there was noexpression whatever on his face," the relative said. "He just firedindiscriminately."

At one point Dipendra's mother, Queen Aishwarya, and his younger brother,Prince Nirajan, followed him into the garden. "That's when they gotshot," the relative said.

When Dipendra moved back inside, his uncle, Prince Dhirendra, approached himand pleaded, " 'Put the gun down; you've done enough damage.' That's whenhe got shot." Two women, an aunt and a cousin, rushed over to help thewounded Dhirendra. "That's when they got shot."

As he lay bleeding, the relative said, Dhirendra urged one of the women toreach into his pocket for a mobile phone to call for outside help, but she wasunable to do so because she had been shot in the arm and shoulder. Dhirendradied of his wounds today; the women are recovering in the city's militaryhospital.

Finally, Dipendra went out to the garden again, and more shots were heard."That must have been the time he was shooting himself," the relativesaid. Once the prince stopped firing and the rooms had fallen silent, therelative said, "people got together and there was somebody saying, 'Thisone's dead, that one's alive.' "

Later that night, according to the relative, one survivor taken to themilitary hospital lay in shock, saying, "It was unbelievable. The crownprince shot everyone."

The witness's account, given by the relative in a joint interview with TheWashington Post and the Times of London, shed no light on what Dipendra wasthinking or feeling as he prepared to kill. Officials and other sources havesaid he was distraught because his mother refused to let him marry girlfriendDevyani Rana, the daughter of a prominent Nepali politician and thegranddaughter of an Indian maharajah.

But the relative of the eyewitness said that, according to the witness, therewas no discussion of the prince's wedding plans or romantic life at the Fridaynight gathering, no arguments overheard between Dipendra and his parents thatevening, and no sign before the shootings that anything was wrong.

"Why he did it, we may never know, but this is actually whathappened," the relative said. "It was a routine Friday night, and itall went wrong."

The government's backpedaling over whether Dipendra killed his family, andwhy, has spread public confusion, anger and rumors of a palace conspiracy andcoverup. Violent anti-government riots erupted here Monday with protestersdemanding to know the truth, and a military curfew was declared that evening andagain today.

Two other relatives of Birendra said in a separate interview today that theyhad "no reason to believe" Dipendra had not been the killer. One, acousin, said he "wished" Dipendra were not guilty but that fromconversations with various sources, "I must conclude [he] was theculprit."

Nepal's new king, Birendra's 54-year-old brother, Gyanendra, has named athree-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 havemade no statements, have remained inaccessible to the press and reportedly havenot been interviewed by any government officials.

"The facts are quite clear. All that has to be done is to ask thesurvivors," said the royal witness's relative, who expressed concern thatthe truth has not been presented by the government. "The family knows thetruth, so if there is some kind of whitewash, I am sure various family memberswill speak up."

The lack of official information about the slayings has given rise to rumorsthat they were not a result of personal rage but of political plotting againstBirendra, who was a beloved national figure. Some people said they suspect aplot involving the new king, Gyanendra, and his son, Paras Shah, who has areputation for violent behavior.

According to the relative of the eyewitness, however, Shah, 28, played animportant and even heroic role in the evening's events, moving quickly to hidesome teenagers behind a sofa as the shootings started and arranging to have armytrucks take the wounded survivors to a military hospital because no ambulancewas available.

"He acted very maturely, very calmly," the relative said. "Hemust 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 believehe could have murdered his parents in cold blood, even in a fit of rage. Afterhis death Monday, some demonstrators tried to prevent his body from beingwhisked to the royal cremation site in an army truck, demanding that it be bornein a formal procession, as his relatives' bodies were on Saturday.

Outside the military hospital where Dipendra died, a crowd toppled brickwalls and chopped down trees in anger over his hasty funeral. "Dipendra wasour king, and we are 200 percent sure he did not do this," said RamShrestha, 22.