Prince William (L) and Prince Harry believe that using the photographs would be a "gross disrespect to their mother's memory

    BEIJING, June 6 (Xinhuanet) -- A British television channel rejected Princess Diana's sons' plea not to use  photographs of her fatal car crash in a documentary airing Wednesday, British media reported Wednesday.

    Prince William and Prince Harry believe that using the photographs would be a "gross disrespect to their mother's memory," Clarence House announced Tuesday.

   "If it were your or my mother dying in that tunnel, would we want the scene broadcast to the nation?" the princes' private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, said in a letter to Channel 4 television.

    However, bosses of Channel 4 television said they would go ahead with the controversial documentary about Diana's last hours in spite of Princes William and Harry's appeal.

    Kevin Lygo, Channel 4's director of television and content, said it was in the "public interest" to show the pictures.

    The documentary, "Diana: The Witness in the Tunnel," is scheduled for broadcast on Wednesday. The princess and her friend Dodi Fayed died along with their chauffeur in a car crash in Paris on Aug. 31, 1997.