The PM boarded an RAF plane piloted by a crew based in Scotland which had flown to Teesside. Another operative was one of the security staff on duty at Tony Blair’s Sedgefield constituency during the weekend that Diana died and was at Teeside to greet the PM.
The co-pilot, according to information given to Stevens, asked this operative: "What’s really going on? We’ve been on standby in Scotland since 5pm on Friday waiting to make this flight to Northolt with the Prime Minister."
This senior MI6 operative, and one other, gave evidence to Lord Stevens, then later produced tickets and documents dating from 1997 which prove they were not in Paris that weekend. One was in the South of France with his wife and in-laws. The other was taking a short trip to Greece.
Arrival in Paris
Diana and Dodi arrived in Paris by private jet from Sardinia during the day of Aug. 30, 1997. They were besieged by a small army of paparazzi. Along the route into Paris, the Mercedes carrying Diana and Dodi was harassed by a black Peugeot, which, while driving in front of the Mercedes, jammed on its brakes without reason several times, to allow paparazzi in other cars and on high-speed motorcycles to come up alongside Dodi and Diana and harass them.
Later in the afternoon, when Diana and Dodi were on the Avenue des Champs Elysees, the same black Peugeot showed up. One of Dodi Fayed's bodyguards confronted the driver of the Peugeot, who retorted that the couple had not seen anything compared to the harassment they would experience as the day wore on.
Initially, Dodi Fayed had planned to dine with Princess Diana at a Paris restaurant on the evening of Aug. 30. In fact, they left the Ritz Hotel at approximately 7:30 p.m., expecting not to return. Apparently, the continued harassment prompted them to change their plans and return to the Ritz Hotel, which is owned by Dodi Fayed's father, Mohamed al-Fayed, and dine there in a private suite.
Henri Paul, the deputy security chief of the Ritz Hotel, was on duty all day. He left the hotel shortly after Dodi and Diana departed for dinner. When Dodi and Diana unexpectedly returned to the hotel shortly after 9:30 p.m., Paul was contacted on his mobile phone, and voluntarily returned to work. Although Paul's precise whereabouts between 7:30 p.m. and approximately 9:45 p.m., when he returned to the Ritz Hotel, are still not known, there has been no evidence to date, suggesting that he was drinking alcohol during this time.
On the contrary, British journalists who tried to track down leads provided by the French police, on Paul's wild drinking bout, while he was off duty, failed to turn up a single witness who saw Paul take so much as a single drink. Several of the bars identified by French official "leakers," were not even open during the hours when Paul was allegedly drinking himself into a stupor.
Further, the hotel's internal, closed-circuit TV cameras continuously followed Paul once he returned to his duties. They showed Paul to be sober. During those final several hours at...the hotel, Paul was in the constant company of other security professionals, all of whom later vouched for his sobriety after the barrage of French police-inspired media leaks accused Paul of being drunk and high on prescription drugs.
One of the last things that Trevor Rees-Jones, the bodyguard who survived the tunnel crash, remembers, is that he, too, considered Paul to be perfectly sober and fit to drive. Paul was qualified to drive the Mercedes 280-S. He had been to Germany on two occasions, taking the Daimler Benz special driving courses, which he passed with flying colors.
Friends, co-workers, and relatives universally disputed the media attempts to portray Paul as a sullen, depressed alcoholic: Further, Paul had gone for his annual physical exam, to qualify for renewal of his pilot's license 48 hours before the crash. He not only passed the physical exam. According to the Doctor who administered the exam, there were no signs of any damage to Paul's liver, a usual sure-fire sign of alcoholism. The French autopsy report also confirmed that Paul's liver was healthy at the time of his death.
It has been confirmed that between 10 p.m. and midnight, Paul drank two glasses of Ricards and water at the Ritz Hotel bar. The alcohol content of those drinks was very small. Yet, for the blood alcohol tests to have been accurate, Paul would have had to have gone through three bottles of strong red wine, or a dozen glasses of alcohol earlier in the day to have still shown such strong alcohol presence in his blood at the time of the crash.
Both the doctor who regularly performed the annual pilot's license physical exams and Paul's personal physician told the media that Paul had never been diagnosed as an alcoholic, and had never received prescriptions for either of the two drugs allegedly found in his bloodstream. Ultimately, the French police admitted that there was no record anywhere in France of such prescriptions in Henri Paul's name.
After the crash, French authorities refused to allow the Paul family to hire their own forensic pathologist to conduct an independent set of tests. They would only elease Paul's body to his family, for proper burial, if they agreed that the body would be cremated or buried without any further tests.
Ultimately, the French officials agreed to release a copy of the written results of the original post-mortem to the families of the deceased. Two independent teams of noted forensic pathologists reviewed the written report.
Dr. Peter Vanezis, British pathologist who held the Regis Chair of Forensic Medicine at Glasgow University, used by the United Nations in both Bosnia and Rwanda to determine whether genocide had occurred following the discovery of mass graves and who was the one who established that the woman who had been the pretender to the Romanov throne was a phony, conducted one of the reviews with a colleague from Lausanne.
Dr. Vanezis and colleague spent 12 hours reviewing the first post-mortem report. They found, first, that the report established that there was no deterioration of Paul's liver. They also found violation of standard procedures and protocols and unanswered questions. The report did not identify the temperature at which the body was stored, from the time it was removed from the car to when the tests were performed.
Henri Paul's body had been crushed in the crash. Thus, the entire chest cavity was badly contaminated by other body fluids, food residues, and so on, mixed together with the blood. Under such circumstances, it is standard practice to take blood samples from other parts of the body, particularly the limbs, which are far from the contaminated chest cavity. But, the first post-mortem report was only conducted on the blood taken from the contaminated chest cavity.
French authorities had leaked to the press that there had been two "independent" post-mortems conducted, and both had revealed the same presence of large amounts of alcohol in Paul's blood. The report provided to the families revealed that these independent tests had been performed on the identical contaminated blood sample from the chest, which had been divided in half and given to two separate laboratories to test. French officials claimed that a urine sample had been taken as well. But the report showed no results of urine tests.
Dr. Vanezis and his associate prepared a detailed memorandum, raising all of their concerns about the forensic report. Their memorandum was passed along to the magistrates in charge of the investigation, Herve Stephan and Marie-Christine Devidal.
A second team of prominent forensic pathologists in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the meantime, had been sent the original forensic report. They drew almost identical conclusions to those in the Vanezis report. They, too, noted the outright incompetence and violation of the most elementary procedures by the French government personnel.
A third independent audit of the first post-mortem was conducted by a team at St. Georges Hospital in London, and their results were the same.
21-August-2006 Ognir [David Leppard] said: The French director of public prosecutions has authorised a judge to reexamine two forensics experts whose evidence was central to the finding that the 1997 crash in Paris was a simple road accident caused by a drunk driver.
Thierry Betancourt, the deputy chief judge at Versailles, last week ordered fresh depositions to be taken from Professor Dominique Lecomte, the pathologist who conducted Paul’s post-mortem, and Dr Gilbert Pepin, who tested his blood.
# While Lecomte testified on oath that she had taken just three blood samples from Paul, a log book shows five samples were taken, suggesting the extra samples may have been wrongly attributed to Paul.
# Pepin said one sample he tested showed Paul had 1.74 grams per litre of alcohol in his blood. But his finding is not supported by paperwork.
# Paperwork relating to a second blood test by Pepin gives two widely differing readings for the amount of alcohol in Paul’s blood.
Mr Lee Sansum, a former member of the Special Investigations Branch of the Royal Military Police who had guarded Diana up to the year of her death, later said he could never accept the conclusion of the French authorities that Diana’s death was simply caused by drink-driving.
Mr Sansum said: “I worked for the Al Fayeds for four years and knew Trevor Rees-Jones well.
I know that, when you worked with Trevor, drink was an absolute no-no. I don’t give much credence to the story that Henri Paul was drunk. Trevor would never have allowed the Princess to get in the car if he had smelled of drink. It just seems to me that we haven’t got the whole story yet. I spoke to Kez Wingfield shortly after the crash.
He had been in a decoy car getting the photographers off Diana’s trail that night and he told me that Henri Paul wasn’t drunk. I’d be happy to tell the Stevens inquiry everything I know. The truth is the Princess feared that she was about to be killed in the final weeks of her life.”
Mr Sansum said: “Trevor was mentally and physically screwed up. He was confused and said ‘Lee, this is going on in the world and I just don’t know anything about it’. But he did tell me that Henri Paul had not been drinking.”
On June 3, 1998, ITV revealed, in a one-hour investigative report, "Diana: The Secrets Behind the Crash," that the forensic tests also showed a near-lethal level of carbon monoxide as well. EIR has independently learned that it was a separate toxicological test on Paul's blood sample, that revealed a carbon monoxide level of more than 30% at the time of the crash. Yet the other passengers did not register any.
As a group of approximately 35 paparazzi gathered in front of the Ritz hotel, shortly after Dodi and Diana returned from their aborted effort to dine out, there was no move by French police to provide security to the couple, or even place barricades between the couple's car and the paparazzi - despite the earlier incidents of aggressive paparazzi harassment of the couple, and the threats from the driver of the Peugeot.
Much of the activity of the paparazzi and the other observers has been captured on tape. Yet, the French police, in response to queries from the families of the three victims, repeatedly denied the existence of any CCTV film footage or still photographs that shed any light on the events of the evening.
EIR saw the CCTV shots do. At approximately 9:45 p.m., at about the time that Dodi and Diana were returning to the Ritz, two English-speaking men, attempting to appear as if they were paparazzi, entered the Ritz and sat down at the main lobby bar. They ordered several rounds of drinks, and remained in the bar, observing the lobby, until shortly before midnight.
According to several sources familiar with the details of Dodi and Diana's final hours alive, Dodi Fayed made the decision that he and Princess Diana would leave the hotel by the back entrance at 38 Rue Cambon, in a backup car that was called to the hotel. The plan was to have one of Dodi Fayed's security guards, Alexander "Kes" Wingfield, walk out the front door of the hotel and signal the drivers of the Mercedes and the Land rover (which was the trail car), that the couple would be coming down in five minutes.
At that moment, Dodi and Diana got into the back seat of the Mercedes 280-S, driven by Henri Paul, with Dodi's other regular bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, in the front passenger seat. As they sped off, the paparazzi were still in front of the hotel oblivious to the departure.
July 17, 2006: Mr Al Fayed said last night: “As experienced security guards, Trevor and Kez should have stopped Henri driving the getaway car and they should never have agreed to allow the Princess and Dodi to travel in a car without a back-up vehicle. This is contrary to all laid-down procedures.
The CCTV cameras reveal that there was a spotter at the back of the hotel, who immediately realized what was happening. That still-unidentified man immediately placed a call on a mobile phone. A moment later, the paparazzi in front of the hotel were on their motorcycles, chasing after the Mercedes.
Other actions were apparently triggered by that call, involving at least two cars that were lying in wait for the Mercedes near the Place de L'Alma tunnel. It was the only occasion in which Dodi and Diana ever travelled in a car without a trail car carrying security guards.
Media reports provided by the French authorities had identified the Mercedes carrying Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed as the 600 model. Early reports also claimed that the car was armoured. In fact, the Mercedes 280-S, a four-cylinder car incapable of reaching high speeds quickly, had been called up from a pool of cars available to the Ritz Hotel just hours before.
It emerged that Paul, who earned J20,000 a year as a Ritz chauffer had deposited Ј75,000 into numerous bank accounts before the crash. Further large amounts were subsequently found distributed in various bank accounts in his name.
Early media coverage, based on leaks from the French government, reported that, as Paul was leaving the Ritz Hotel, he had taunted the paparazzi, shouting, "You won't catch me tonight." Paul was actually on the other side of the hotel to the paparazzi.
It was claimed that Henri Paul was not qualified to drive the Mercedes but he had received specialty driver training from Daimler Benz in Germany. Also, Paul was not required to have any kind of special driver's license, in order to drive the Mercedes 280-S.
Between the Ritz and the tunnel
As the Mercedes 280-S left the rear of the Ritz Hotel, several dozen of the paparazzi, finally alerted to the diversion, set out in hot pursuit. As the Mercedes drove through the heart of Paris, a half-dozen eyewitnesses have testified that, as the Mercedes took a right turn onto the Voie Georges Pompidou, a highway running along the right bank of the Seine River, about two kilometres from the entrance of the Place de L'Alma tunnel, there were a number of cars and motorcycles aggressively chasing behind.
All along the route that the Mercedes took, from the Ritz Hotel, along the Voie Georges Pompidou, to the entrance to the Place de L'Alma tunnel, there are both outside CCTV cameras, and radar-activated cameras installed by the French police. If, at any time, the Mercedes or the cars and motorcycles chasing after it had gone beyond the speed limit, the radar cameras should have automatically snapped pictures. These pictures should have provided the police with a time-sequence account of the final moment's before the crash.
But the French authorities have systematically claimed - through press leaks, and in response to queries by the families of the deceased - that no such pictures exist. The French authorities insist that none of the outside CCTV cameras on any of the buildings along the route show anything relevant to the crash probe.
Shortly after midnight, on Aug. 30-31, 1997, David Laurent, an off-duty senior French police official, was driving alone in his car on the right bank of the Seine River, heading toward the Place de l'Alma tunnel. As he drove, Laurent was passed by a speeding white Fiat Uno, less than a minute ahead of Diana's car, according to accounts he provided to French Criminal Brigade police probing the Diana crash. As he approached the tunnel, Laurent noticed that the Fiat Uno that had sped by him was now crawling along in the right traffic lane, almost at a standstill, just before the tunnel entrance.
Although the behavior of the Fiat driver was a bit bizarre, Laurent drove on. Less than a moment later, however, Laurent heard a loud explosion from inside the tunnel, as he was driving a short distance ahead.
Jacques Morel, 59, record producer, who was driving home with his wife Moufida in Paris on the night of August 31, 1997, said: "As we entered the Alma tunnel I looked to my left and saw about a dozen shady figures on a tiny pavement by the side of the opposite carriageway.
"They were all standing in a long line. The sight was unforgettable. The pavement is less than 30cm (12in) wide and next to fast traffic. They would have been breathing in petrol fumes and it was very dirty down there. It was certainly not a sensible place to stand around."
If accurate, Mr Morel's recollections suggested that the route Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were taking was known in advance. Until then it had always been thought that chauffeur Henri Paul was following an unexpected route in order to shake off paparazzi photographers.
Mr Morel said: "There was an almighty bang and a great big flash of light. Immediately my wife and I realised there had been a crash. My first thought was that those inside the tunnel were connected with what had happened. This thought has never left me. We could see a car coming from the opposite direction had gone straight into a pillar. All of the other drivers stopped, so I did too. It was then that I also saw a white Fiat Uno being driven away."
The car was later reported to be registered to James Andanson, a paparazzi photographer who committed suicide in 2000. Detectives working on the inquiry into Diana's death, headed by former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens, considered his account so important that he was flown to London and interviewed for three days.
Gary Dean said he saw the Mercedes just before it entered the tunnel: "It was traveling very fast and gave off a whooshing noise as it entered the tunnel as if the driver had hit the clutch but failed to change gear."
Clifford G., an off-duty chauffeur, was on the Place de la Reine Astrid, a triangular park area near the tunnel entrance. His attention was drawn to the tunnel entrance by the loud whine of an automobile engine. He saw a Mercedes heading towards the tunnel at an estimated speed of more than 60 mph:
"I also saw a big motorcycle pass. I can't tell you how many people were on it. The motorcycle was going fast . . . would put the motorcycle at 30-40 metres behind the Mercedes."
He was later angered by the photographers, in an account he told investigators:
"I noticed four or five men around the wrecked Mercedes. It was obvious that the four occupants were wounded. There was blood, their bodies were sprawled every which way inside the Mercedes. Yet these men photographed the car and the wounded from every angle. Seeing this spectacle, I shouted,'That's all you can do instead of calling for help?' "
The witness known as Thierry H claimed he saw a car driven by paparazzi blocking Diana's Mercedes exit from a road which would have avoided the route through the Point d'Alma tunnel (although it is unclear how he knew that they were paparazzi). He had been driving in the right lane of the express road near the Alexander III Bridge, approximately 800 metres before the Alma tunnel.
He was "passed by a vehicle moving at a very high speed. I estimated its speed at about 75 mph to 80 mph. It was a powerful black car, I think a Mercedes ... This car was clearly being pursued by several motorcycles, I would say four to six of them. Some were mounted by two riders. These motorcycles were tailing the vehicle and some tried to pull up alongside it."
In 1997 it was reported that the whereabouts of a British secretary from London, and working in Paris, Brenda Wells, driving in the tunnel at the time of Diana's crash were "shrouded in mystery". It was claimed that she had "disappeared" from her flat in Champigny sur Marne shortly after giving her statement to the French police after she and her husband had been told to go into hiding and not to speak about what she had seen (Sunday Mirror, 9th November 1997).
She had told police how she was forced off the road by a motorbike following Diana's Mercedes at high speed. She also saw a dark-coloured car and in her statement she claimed:
"After a party with my friends, I was returning to my home. A motorbike with two men forced me off the road. It was following a big car. Afterwards in the tunnel there were very strong lights like flashes. After that, a black car arrived. The big car had come off the road. I stopped and five or six motorbikes arrived and started taking photographs. They were crying 'It's Diana'"
Paris/Wiesbaden, Sept. 9th 1997 (EIRNS) There are two separate witnesses, both of whom choose to remain anonymous, who are quoted by the newspaper Journal du Dimanche, saying that a car driving in front of the Mercedes S280, forced the Mercedes to start braking, as it entered the tunnel. The first witness said:
"The Mercedes was driving on the right hand, shortly before the entry of the tunnel, preceded by a dark-colored automobile, of which make I cannot say. This car clearly was attempting to force the Mercedes to brake . . . The driver of the Mercedes veered into the left-hand lane, and then entered the tunnel.''
The witness said that what drew his attention to the scene, was the loud sound of the Mercedes' gears being suddenly lowered. The other witness, who was walking along the riverside, said he was surprised by the "sound of a motor humming very loudly.''
He said he saw a Mercedes "travelling behind another automobile. I believe that the reason the Mercedes accelerated so suddenly, was to try to veer into the left lane, and pass that car.''
The second witness interviewed by Journal du Dimanche was walking along the Seine River, when he was startled by "the sound of a motor humming very loudly." He said he saw a Mercedes "travelling behind another automobile. I believe the reason the Mercedes accelerated so suddenly, was to try to veer into the left lane, and pass that car."
Police at the scene had gathered up evidence - a side mirror and fragments of a tail light -suggesting that a two-car collision had occurred. A police sketch, drawn at the crash site, labelled a section of the tunnel the "collision zone." Several witnesses, interviewed during the first week after the crash, had described a small hatchback car, cutting in front of the Mercedes at the tunnel entrance, jamming its breaks inside the tunnel.
From the moment that the first eyewitnesses came forward to speak to the media and the French police, there were reports that a dark-colored car had smashed into the Mercedes a split second before the crash. For two weeks, the French authorities leaked story after story to the press, dismissing the idea of a "second car" as sheer foolishness and outright interference in their investigation.
However, on Sept. 15, the London Daily Telegraph, in a story by Julian Nundy from Paris, noted, "Paris police investigating the crash . . . have found a mysterious scratch along the right-hand side of the tangled wreckage of, the Mercedes. Although investigators say they had '98%' dismissed theories that another vehicle ahead of the Mercedes might have caused it to swerve out of control, they say the paint stripe along the side of the car, could indicate a brush with another vehicle."
The same day, another eyewitness, who requested to remain anonymous, told France 2 television, "At that time I saw two cars. One a sedan-type of a dark color, accelerated sharply, and from that moment, the Mercedes, which was going very fast, bumped into the sedan, and lost control."
The French authorities finally admitted that they had, indeed, found the paint marks of a Fiat Uno on the right-side of the mangled Mercedes plus parts of a rear brake light fixture embedded in the front of the Mercedes, and other parts of a Fiat Uno near the crash site. Yet, no Fiat Uno owner had come forward to tell police that he or she had been involved in the crash. The owner and driver are unknown.
The French police, a month after the crash, finally began their search for the missing Fiat Uno. The first accounts, consistent with all the witness stories, described the missing Fiat Uno as dark blue. But, subsequent accounts, all leaked by the French police, described the missing car as black, red, and white.
EIR learned that the French police had established that the missing Fiat Uno was a turbo model manufactured between 1984 and 1987. This Fiat has a higher acceleration rate than the Mercedes 280-S, and a higher top speed. This means that the Fiat was capable of passing and cutting off the Mercedes, and accelerating to avert serious damage in a collision.
Some accounts claimed that the nearest paparazzi were 400 metres behind the Mercedes 280-S at the point the crash took place. This is discredited by the testimony of Anderson, Levy, and Wells, as well as a half-dozen other eyewitnesses who requested to remain anonymous.
At the moment of the crash at the Place de L' Alma tunnel, London attorney Gary Hunter 41, was in Paris with his wife for her birthday. They were in their room on the third floor of the Royal Alma Hotel, at 35 Rue Jean Goujon. His account was cited on September 22, 1997, by Agence-France-Presse. , Hunter later recounted, on Nov. 12, what he heard and saw:
At approximately 12:25 a.m., on Sunday, Aug. 31, through the open window of his hotel room, Hunter heard the sounds of the automobile crash inside the tunnel. He ran to the window. Hunter, contrary to initial accounts in the London Sunday Times on Sept. 21, had no line of sight on the tunnel, which was behind the hotel.
"I was in my hotel room overlooking the tunnel and heard a car speeding from that direction . . . I jumped up and saw a small dark-coloured car drive up the street with another car practically stuck to it's back bumper . . . the first car looked like a Fiat Uno or a Renault Clio. The white car was a Mercedes . . . they both spun round together and sped off down the street at a suicidal pace, more than 100 miles per hour . . . I thought it was very strange that they were travelling so dangerously close to each other . . . their behaviour made me wonder exactly what they had been up to in the tunnel when the crash happened."
The first car was a dark vehicle, which was immediately followed by a white vehicle which, he believes, was a Mercedes. The two cars sped past the hotel "at break-neck speed, almost reckless speed." Hunter told the Sunday Times that he thought they were travelling at 60-70 mph. The two cars were driving in tandem, "with the white car nearly on the bumper of the smaller dark car."
The two vehicles sped up to the corner past the hotel, where there is a traffic circle. They sped out of sight. The strange behavior of the two cars, according to Hunter, "made me feel it may be linked to the crash sounds in the tunnel. . . . My initial thoughts were that these were people fleeing from something."
At the time he saw the two cars speeding past his hotel, Gary Hunter had no idea that the crash in the tunnel under the Place de L'Alma had involved Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed. He did not learn of their deaths until the next morning, and, as Hunter described it to EIR, he and his wife were shattered by the news. On Monday, the Hunters returned to London. By Tuesday morning, Hunter decided that "what I saw may have been important."
He contacted attorneys for the al Fayed family. They made an appointment to meet on Wednesday, which was postponed. They finally met, in London, on Thursday morning, and Gary Hunter told the lawyers what he had heard and seen. The attorneys assured him that his verbal account would be passed on to the French authorities investigating the crash. Indeed, on Friday, Sept. 5, Hunter was called by the al Fayed attorneys, who confirmed that his account had been delivered to the appropriate French officials.
Hunter didn't hear from the French police. On Sept. 8, Hunter returned to Paris, where he was scheduled to give an interview to NBC-TV. While in Paris, he contacted the French authorities and volunteered to give them a statement. They refused to see him. Hunter told EIR that his decision to give an interview to the London Sunday Times was motivated by concern that the French refused to interview him.
Two days after his interview appeared in the Sunday Times, he got a response - of sorts. The London Evening Standard published a story, based on unnamed sources in the French investigative squad, branding Hunter's story "ludicrous." The unnamed officials were quoted as saying that they were "tired of the meddling" in their investigation.
It was only after the Fiat Uno story was finally corroborated, and Hunter's remarks picked up by other media, that the French authorities finally asked Scotland Yard to take a statement from him. That took place at the end of October.
Brian Anderson, an American businessman from California, was driving in a taxi along the Voie George Pompidou, when he saw the Mercedes 280-S driving past, with two motorcycles and other cars right on its tail. Anderson told reporters from NBC "Dateline" that the Mercedes was travelling at a rapid, but safe speed, of approximately 60 miles per hour, but that there were clearly other vehicles attempting to harass the Mercedes, as it headed toward the tunnel entrance. Anderson also noted that the driver of the Mercedes appeared to be perfectly in command of the situation, and showed no signs of being drunk.
"I noticed one of the motorcycles going and attempting to pass on the left side of the car. In between is like an abutment. The beginning of what eventually begins to become the tunnel. I saw the motorcycle get over and begin like he was going through the passing movement . . . I did see motorcycles. Two, three people - one single and one with two people and the one with the two people was the one that actually tried to make, getting between the left hand side.
My attention was drawn away, the cab came to a sudden stop and I saw an object passing in front of us, crossing over. Sparks were flying, there was dust, there was a lot of noise and it happened very quickly and the car came down and rested on its tires. In that instant the horn went off."
He offered to give a statement to the French police and for his troubles, he had his passport confiscated for hours. Yet, the police never came to take a formal statement from him.
On September 4th 1997, Reuters in Paris reported that a retired ship's captain from Rouen, France, Francoise Levistre (or Levi) had told them that he was driving just ahead of Diana's Mercedes as the cars entered the tunnel, when he saw a motorcycle swerve directly in front of the Mercedes, making it lose control. He had come to Paris for an evening out with his wife Valerie, when noticed many headlights bobbing up and down behind him in his rearview mirror as he approached the road tunnel under the Point d'Alma where the Mercedes crashed. From his home Rouen in Normandy, Levi told Reuters:
"I said to my wife Valerie that there must be big shot behind us with a police escort. Then l went down into the tunnel and, again in my rearview mirror l saw the car in the middle of the tunnel with the motorcycle on its left, pulling ahead and then swerving to the right directly in front of the car . . . as the motorcycle swerved and before the car lost control, there was a flash of light but then l was out of the tunnel and heard, but did not see the impact . . . l immediately pulled my car over to the curb but my wife said 'Let's get out of here. Its a terror attack' " (Reuters, Paris, Quoted on Internet 4/9/97).
Levi added that there were two people on the motorcycle, and that he did not know if the explosion of light he saw as the motorcycle ran close to the car was a camera flash. Apparently, lawyers for the Al Fayed family told Reuters that Levi had contacted them 4 days earlier with his testimony and spoke to officials at The Ritz Hotel in Paris. They advised him to give the information to the Police which he did.
Mohamed Medjahdi and Souad Mousakkir were driving on the Voie Georges Pompidou at about 50 mph in their Citroen, in front of the Mercedes, and Medjahdi told Fox TV that he saw two cars speed past the Mercedes, as others were coming up menacingly from behind. He said Diana’s Mercedes limousine had been speeding towards him and "slewing across the carriageway . . . completely out of control".
The Algerian-born 29-year-old said he accelerated away just before there was an explosion and the limousine crashed into a concrete pillar and the tunnel wall. "It was a dreadful sound, like a bomb exploding, magnified and echoing around the underpass. Even today, six years later, I can’t get the sight and sound out of my head. I can still hear the screeching of those brakes."
He insisted there were no other vehicles or photographers in sight when the crash happened, adding: "I am absolutely convinced, clear and certain, that this was a tragedy - but it was an accident."
Souad Mousakkir, his companion in the car at the time, is quoted as saying the Fiat came up very fast alongside the car she was in, then slowed down so they were side by side. She described the driver as in his mid-thirties, Mediterranean, "short because his head was only just above the steering wheel," and with very dark brown, wiry hair. "He had a very strange expression, like his mind was thinking about something else," she was quoted as saying. "I thought he was a madman."
She said she told Medjadhi to speed away and that "a moment later we heard the screech of tires," the newspaper said. She said she looked around and saw the Mercedes slide out of control, come toward them, then hit a pillar. "I looked for the Fiat but it had disappeared. The Mercedes must have gone out of control trying to avoid it," she was quoted as saying.
The newspaper said Mouffakir had remained silent since 1997 because she was afraid of being killed, but it did not indicate whom she feared. It said she had split three years ago from Medjahdi.
Malo France, a taxi driver, passed through the eastbound lane of the tunnel with a passenger moments after the accident occurred. He stopped briefly. "It was horrible," he said, "the worst accident I have ever seen. I made the sign of the cross over my heart. I thought, God save them, and God protect us from these types of accidents. In the front seat there was a man. I also saw a woman with blond hair. She was crying, very loudly. There were two different voices, one a man and one a woman."
12:25 a.m: The crash occurred.
The Time magazine story revealed two skids marks "... a 62 ft. long skid mark that swerves from the right into the left lane. A short distance beyond that is the beginning of a 105-ft. long skid mark that leads directly into the 13th pillar.
Virtually all news accounts in the immediate hours after the crash reported that the speedometer of the Mercedes had been frozen at over 180 kilometres per hour, when the first rescue workers and witnesses arrived on the scene.
The car's manufacturer, Daimler Benz, claimed that whenever a Mercedes 280-S is in an accident, even a crash at reasonably slow speed, the speedometer will freeze at zero. It is no wonder that the French authorities rejected Daimler Benz's offer to send a team of safety engineers to France to assist in the crash investigation. Two weeks later, the French police "corrected" the error; but this time, the media scarcely reported the correction.
Sep 1 Newsweek said that not one of the tunnel witnesses "saw a white car."
The ABC News account said: "A picture was taken showing Diana not looking at the photographer taking the picture but at a motorcycle behind the car. To do so she had to fully turn around, and it would appear that she was trying to identify those on the motorcycle. The white paint scratches were found on the right front end of the Mercedes, on the right rear-view mirror that was ripped away and several dozen yards away from where the Mercedes came to a halt."
Gaelle L. reported: "As we entered the Alma tunnel, we heard a loud noise of screeching tires. At that moment, in the opposite lane, we saw a large car approaching at high speed. This car swerved to the left, then went back to the right and crashed into the wall with its horn blaring. I should note that in front of this car, there was another, smaller car. I think this vehicle was black, but I'm not sure. Behind the big car there was a large motorcycle. I can't be sure how many riders were on it."
Gaelle and her boyfriend, Benoit B., parked outside the tunnel and ran into the tunnel to flag down oncoming vehicles. She borrowed a cell phone and called French fire department's specialized emergency squad. The call was received at 12:26 a.m., thus making it the first contact with emergency services.
Joanna Luz said: "It was a blue Mercedes and the airbag was on the passenger side, for sure, and the horn, right after the huge explosion there was a horn - for about two minutes and I think that was the driver up against the steering wheel."
Tom Richardson said: "So I and another gentleman ran into the tunnel to see if we could help anybody get out of the car and a gentleman at the car, at the scene, was starting to run towards us out of the tunnel like the car was about to explode, so we turned and ran out of the tunnel . . . About fifteen seconds later we turned around . . . and the paparazzi snapping off pictures".
October 9, 1997, ABC News, Paris, reported: "Investigators probing the Paris crash in which Princess Diana died have concluded a second car was probably involved in the accident, a police official said today."
The bright flash
Bernard Dartevelle, the attorney for the Ritz Hotel, told Associated Press' Paris correspondent, Jocelyn Noveck, on Sept. 8, that he had been shown copies of two photographs confiscated by Paris police, that showed driver Henri Paul blinded by a bright flash of light. Dartevelle described the two pictures:
"One sees very distinctly the driver dazzled by a flash. One sees very distinctly the bodyguard at his side, who with a brisk gesture lowers the visor to protect himself from the flash, and one sees very distinctly Princess Diana turning to look behind the vehicle, and one sees very distinctly the yellow headlight of a motorcycle." Dartevelle added, "The photo taken before the first photo of the accident shows the Mercedes taken from very close. . . . A driver, who is maybe a photographer, and a motorcyclist, also perhaps a photographer, are very directly implicated in this accident."
Security experts have confirmed that both British and French intelligence services have developed and deployed mobile lasers, or dazers, which temporarily blind a target, and also cause sudden, sharp, paralyzing pain in the optic nerve. These anti-personnel lasers, which have been used in Africa, the Balkans, and in the Persian Gulf War, are light and mobile, and could easily be used from the back seat of a car. One type of these "dazer" devices widely available in Europe, is the size of a fountain pen, and can be purchased for $35.
Other sources told EIR that many of the paparazzi carry cameras that are equipped with super-powered flashes, that are capable of penetrating bullet-proof glass, and dark-tinted glass, to photograph passengers inside targeted cars. These flashes give off near-blinding light. The Mercedes 280-S that was carrying Dodi and Diana was not bullet-proofed nor did it have specially darkened windows.
Contact Music – February 7, 2006 said: New witnesses have told British detectives, leading a fresh enquiry into the fatal August 1997 accident, they saw a motorcyclist point a laser into the eyes of chauffeur Henri Paul, causing the Mercedes to crash inside the Pont De L'Alma tunnel in Paris, France. One witness said he saw "an enormous radar-like flash of light", reports UK newspaper the Daily Express.
Peter Allen, in the Daily Express, June 3, 2006, reported: "A former secret service agent who has spent time in prison for writing about his spying experiences, is understood to have twice met team members of the Lord Stevens inquiry into the death of Diana and assisted them. He is believed to have given them vital evidence about Henri Paul’s links with MI6, for whom the driver was a paid agent."
His home was raided in France by agents of the DST, or Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, the French equivalent of MI5, supported by police officers. On one occasion he suggested that a laser gun may have been used to blind Paul, so ensuring that he drove his Mercedes into the wall of the Alma underpass in Paris.
He revealed that the “blinding flash” in the tunnel bore all the hallmarks of a secret service plot. The light described by witnesses was too powerful to be mistaken for a photographer flashgun. The laser technique is standard training for MI6 officers and is so powerful it can bring down a helicopter by blinding the pilot.
Tomlinson said: “When I heard witnesses in Paris talk about a bright flash before Diana’s car crash it made sense. A tunnel is a perfect place for an assassination, with fewer witnesses.”
Tomlinson has confessed that, when he was an agent, he saw an MI6 file on a paid informant based at the Paris Ritz hotel. It was widely assumed at the time that this was Paul. Tomlinson was able to name names and provide a wealth of circumstantial detail to the enquiry that pointed to the involvement of the intelligence services in her death. The sworn testimony was overlooked by Judge Stephan’s inquiry and subsequently ignored by the mainstream media.
At the crash site
Romuald Rat, who was later charged with possible complicity in the Mercedes crash, was observed, by one eyewitness at the crash site, leaning over Princess Diana as she lay semi-conscious in the back seat of the Mercedes, just before the first emergency rescue crew arrived.
From L'Express, June, 25 1998. Original in French. (p 48 ff) - Stéphane Darmon, partner of Romuald Rat, arrived at the scene of the crash on a motorcycle (mounted two-up with Rat): “I saw the car [the Mercedes] in the tunnel, jammed up against the right-hand wall. I took a rapid decision to overtake. I drove over glass shards, and stopped 10 metres further on. Romuald got off immediately and went in the direction of the car.”
Romuald Rat said: “When I got off the bike I left my helmet down. I told Stéphane to go on a bit with the bike, and I ran towards the car.
Two more photographers (Serge Arnal and Christian Martinez) arrive at the scene in a black Fiat. Martinez said: “We came by the car very quickly, at about 90-100 kph. We stopped about 20 metres further on. I don't remember if there were other vehicles there at the time. Some vehicles had already stopped on the other side of the road, but not on our side. I took out my camera. We went towards the crash scene and that's where I remember seeing Rat. He seemed shocked by what had happened, and was wandering aimlessly.”
Serge Arnalsaid: “Once I got out of the car, I didn't get too close, as I hate the sight of blood. I saw the state of the car, and realised it was very serious. I used my mobile phone to call the emergency services. It was my first reflex. I had to move away from the site of the accident to get a better line. I went towards the exit of the tunnel in the direction of Trocadéro." Arnal is reported to have dialed 12 instead of the correct number, 112.
A pedestrian, Belkacem B., arrived on foot: "I tried to open the door on the woman's side, but could not. I was the first to try to open one of the car doors, as it happens the one which seemed the easiest but which, all the same, resisted. As I arrived in the tunnel, I also saw the flash of cameras coming from behind the car. I saw there were four photographers. As I tried to open one of the car doors, I asked the photographers and especially the biggest of them (Romuald Rat) what we had to do. The fat photogrpaher who was taking pictures of the car said to me: 'Don't touch anything. It's Princess Diana. She's with Dodi!'"
Romuald Rat decided to try to open the right-hand back door of the Mercedes: "I went back to the rear of the car, where the Princess was. I remember somebody showed up carrying a small white oxygen mask.”
He placed her head in a position that made it easier to breathe and to administer an oxygen mask. He also used a portable telephone to call the emergency medical service, describe the location of the accident and the nature of the injuries.
12:28 Dr Frédéric Mailliez, of SOS-Médecins, happened to be driving the other direction and stopped his car near the accident. He took in the scene and immediately observed that Fayed and a driver were dead. He pinpointed the location on a map and called for help by radio, asking for two ambulances and a rescue vehicle for the trapped victims. He took an oxygen mask from his car and went back to the Mercedes.
The front seat passenger was already being attended to by an off-duty firemen who also happened onto the scene. So he turned his attention to the blonde woman in the rear, whose identity was not immediately apparent to him, despite the paparazzi calling out, in a frenzy, that it was Diana.
A man of "Egyptian type" dressed in a striped suit, according to witnesses, asks drivers to reverse away from the scene. Another passer-by sees a police patrol car on the cours Albert 1er.
Sébastien Dorzee, one of the two officers [the other is Lino Gaggliardone] said: “There was a group of 10 to 15 photographers taking pictures. The flashes were going off like machine guns, and each of them must have shot off a whole film. I immediately got out of the car and ran to the scene. As soon as I saw the accident and the presence of the photographers I thought it must be someone important … I tried to push back the photographers, who were enraged. In the struggle, I was pushed several times. At no time did a photographer come to lend a hand."
On board the Samu ambulance, whose arrival was logged at 0032 hrs, Dr Armold Derossi. Dr Claude Fuilla called for the fire brigade. Reinforcements arrive shortly after - fire trucks from two stations, and two more ambulances from the Necker hospital.
Jean-Marc Martino, anaesthetist and resuscitation surgeon of the Samu, said: "She was agitated and crying out, and did not appear to understand what I was saying to reassure her. “At that time a fire brigade doctor arrived with his crew, and took charge of the front-seat passenger, allowing me to concentrate on the Princess. …We extracted her with difficulty and taking all the necessary precautions, with the aid of the firemen. Despite this, as this was being done, she suffered a cardiac arrest."
Ambulance attendant Michel Massebeuf said: “On our arrival the Samu doctor immediately started treating the Princess, while she was in the car. According to what I saw, that's when she was put on a drip. The firemen extracted the Princess from the crash vehicle. I brought up the trolley, and she was put on."
While this was going on, the fire brigade removed the roof of the Mercedes. The medical staff had decided on the large hospital of la Pitié-Salpêtrière, just minutes from the Gare d'Austerlitz.
Prefect of police Philippe Massoni had contacted Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement, fortunately in residence at his second home in the Paris suburbs. The minister wanted to come to the scene as quickly as possible, but the prefect advised him to go instead to the hospital.
Massoni also contacted Christine Albanel, cultural adviser to French president Jacques Chirac, on duty at the Elysée Palace, Patrick Rioux, chief of the Judiciary Police, and Martine Monteil, head of the Criminal Brigade. She decided to follow events rather than wake the president immediately. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin was also alerted in La Rochelle. He made an immediate flight to Paris on board an official plane. Christine Albanel called British Ambassador Sir Michael Jay, who called the Queen's private secretary at Balmoral, then went to the hospital. Prince Charles wa contacted. He informed the Queen but left his two sons to sleep on.
Police and eyewitness reports and even the accounts of some of the photographers agree on this point: the paparazzi were in a state of excitement bordering on frenzy.
Stanley Culbreath, a US tourist who was one of the first to reach the Princess's car described "the unimaginable delay" before anyone tried to free her from the wrecked Mercedes. He said: "It was at least 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived and the one policeman who was there made no attempt to help anyone who was in that wreck . . . It was as if those there had decided nothing could be done."
Mr. Culbreath had just left the Eiffel Tower after a late-night sightseeing trip with two business companions, Clarence Williams and Mike Williams, when they drove to the entrance of the tunnel. He said: "The front passenger door was thrown open and I could see another man (Trevor Rees-Jones). His face was pushed into the airbag . . . His feet were out of the door and were just touching the floor. Police finally forced Culbreath and his companions to leave the tunnel."
12:32 The first unit of the Sapeurs-Pompiers, a military emergency service, arrived within seven minutes and began to administer treatment.
At 12:40 a.m.,15 minutes after the accident, the first SAMU ambulance arrived with its on-board physician. In a deposition given later to French investigators, the physician said Diana was agitated, crying out, and did not seem to understand everything he said to reassure her. He added that she repeatedly moved her left arm and right leg. He immediately started an IV drip.
Carlo Zaglia, an off duty fireman who comforted Diana, told how she repeatedly asked: 'What's happened? What's going on?' Zaglia, who did not give evidence to the official investigation, said: 'She could speak, she could hear and her eyes were open.' Zaglia said he remembered Diana trying to stand up but finding she was trapped in the wreckage.
Trapped in the wreck or not
The Scotsman notes that contrary to the impression given by the British Embassy in Paris, Diana had not been trapped in the wreckage of the crashed Mercedes Benz, but was free to be removed instantly from the car by equipment available on the ambulance.
Dr. Maillez and Time's own account said Diana faced no impediment and there was no need to cut the roof to remove her from the car. In fact, Maillez' companion Mark Budt said: "…the portion of the car that she was in, that quarter was basically undamaged."Guardian on September 1, 1997.
However. French police gave out the statement that the race to cut her free was proving difficult. The problem was the car's dense armor plating. "The car is extremely heavy and needs experience to drive it," a police officer said. "The specially reinforced steel made it extremely difficult to cut through and reach Princess Diana and the injured bodyguard in the front seat after the crash."
For weeks, the French authorities justified the long delay in getting Princess Diana to a hospital with claims that the rear compartment of the car had been crushed, and it required a lengthy effort by French firemen and rescue workers to pry her body loose from the back seat. Eventually, after a number of early eyewitnesses inside the tunnel came forward, the French government was forced to retract the story, and admit that the rear compartment had not been damaged in the crash.
She was not brought to Val de Grace, Cochin Hospital, the Hotel Dieu, Lariboisiere, or the private American Hospital - all of which were closer than La Pitie Salpetriere.
One highly respected French doctor who specialized in emergency response, told EIR that Princess Diana should have been taken to the Val de Grace, "which is much closer than La Pitie. That is a military hospital. Every political figure who is in a car crash or is injured is taken there." The doctor added: "The firemen, who were on the scene of the crash, are part of the Army. They undoubtedly notified the Val de Grace, which has a top team of trauma specialists on duty 'round the clock. I might have helicoptered her in. She would have been on the operating block a few minutes after being stabilized."
September 10, 1997, Paris (Reuter): Princess Diana's final words as she lay fatally injured in a Paris car wreck were "Leave me alone, leave me alone," the French daily Le Parisien reported.
At about 0040, when they failed to see the Mercedes containing Diana and Dodi arrive at the apartment in the rue Arséne-Houssaye, bodyguard Kes Wingfield and driver Philippe Dourneau started to worry. Of course, it was possible Dodi had changed the programme unexpectedly.
Wingfield tried to beep his colleague Trevor [Rees-Jones] in vain. In front of the entrance [to the apartment] two paparazzi, Stéphane Cardinale and Pierre Suu were also waiting. Suddenly, Dourneau reported: "One of them gets a call on his mobile phone. He goes white. We grasp that he has received some terrible news. We had to insist before he would tell us that Dodi had just had an accident under the pont de l'Alma.”
Diana had had a cardiac arrest while the ambulance staff were extracting her from the car and the SAMU then kept her there at the roadside until 1:18 a.m., when she was placed in an ambulance, which moved off towardsthe end of the tunnel. The ambulance was originally accompanied by two police motorcycles, who "lost" the ambulance when it stopped.
The Los Angeles Times on September 11, 1997 wrote: "Diana was eased into an ambulance and given two motorcycle policemen as escorts. Doctors noticed she was losing blood pressure and her heartbeat was failing. Though very near the hospital, the ambulance had to halt suddenly when the princess's heart stopped beating so she could be given a massive dose of adrenaline."
Massoni called Marcel Vinzerich, public security commissioner on duty, who was directing the convoy from one of the two cars and was told the ambulance had stopped on the pont d'Austerlitz; the doctors had had to undertake an emergency operation.
Michel Massebeuf, ambulance staffer, said: “At the Jardin des Plantes, the doctor asked me to stop. We stopped for about five minutes so he could carry out a treatment which required absolute immobility.”
However, NBC Nightly News, September 10, 1997, reported: "In a rare statement tonight, doctors at the hospital that tried to save the princess denied reports they stopped the ambulance to give Diana a massive dose of adrenaline because her heart stopped. The hospital said nothing about news reports the ambulance did not have the correct blood supplies."
Just before 02:00, Chevénement joined Massoni at la Pitié-Salpêtrière, at the wing containing the intensive care unit. To their "great surprise" the ambulance containing the Princess has not yet arrived. The banks of the Seine had been closed to traffic so that was not an impediment and Piete-Salpetriere hospital was just 6.15 kilometres away.
02:05 The ambulance finally arrived. According to the deposition of the on-duty doctor, who admitted her into the hospital, she arrived alive and with a cardiac rhythm. Within 10 minutes of her arrival, the patient again suffered a cardiac arrest. Despite many moves to revive her, doctors pronounced her deceased at 4:05 a.m.
From The Scotsman: "What is puzzling about the treatment offered to Diana is that she was not hospitalized until her condition had deteriorated to a critical extent. She suffered a series of heart attacks in the tunnel and on the way to the hospital, and had a massive cardiac arrest within minutes of arriving at La Pitie Salpetriere. The truth is that she was dead on arrival in the operating theater, although the surgical team battled against all the odds to revive her.
"No convincing explanation has been offered for the delay. The surgical team at the hospital had a long time in which to prepare for the arrival of their patient. They were in telephone communication with the doctors in the tunnel from the very beginning and were on formal alert from 1 a.m.
Authorities opened up the roadway hours after the accident, thereby obscuring the skidmarks and other evidence and Diana was immediately ordered embalmed by British authorities for her flight back to Britain.
On September 19, 1997 Agence France-Presse reported: "Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris, may have been six-weeks pregnant at the time of the accident, Time magazine said in its latest issue. Time Reported that an emergency-service doctor told the magazine that an associate at the scene said Diana was drifting in and out of consciousness, and at one point saying she was six-weeks pregnant while making a rubbing gesture on her belly."
October 13, 1997: Dr. John Burton, Coroner of the Queen's Household, expressed his frustration at having no authority to call witnesses from abroad and said he would have to rely on a report from French police about August's death crash. He branded it a 'ludicrous situation.'"
Later developments
The Daily Express, February 7, 2006, reported: "Raiders broke into the block where ex-Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens is based and stole two laptops. They also made off with other computer equipment. There was no sign of forced entry, and a source close to the burglary investigation described it as “a very professional job”. Three days later, a second incident occurred at the same block of serviced offices – part of a larger Regent Centre development at Gosforth on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne."
Officers from Operation Paget, the Ј4 million inquiry into Diana’s death led by the former head of Scotland Yard Lord Stevens, spoke to Rees-Jones and Wingfield some time ago. But that was before compelling new evidence emerged that Paul’s blood samples were switched in a French laboratory. Sources close to the inquiry believe that the security guards must now be re-interviewed in the light of serious question marks surrounding French forensic evidence involving Paul.
July 24, 2006: The Royal Coroner Michael Burgess has stepped down, blaming pressure of work. Many believe his departure paves the way for a cover-up. Lord Stevens’ 12-strong team of detectives is said to be “bemused” after being left high and dry by Mr Burgess’s sudden resignation. The coroner had been directing their investigation and at times even prevented then interviewing key witnesses.
A source close to the Ј4 million Operation Paget inquiry said: “Because of the evidence available to him, Mr Burgess found it very difficult to say Diana’s death was an accident. Many questions are being raised. But now Mr Burgess is out of the firing line and there is talk the search is on for a tame judge.”
I've tried to avoid any of the gruesome details regarding the deceased and have mentioned none of the uncanny occult aspects of the case, preferring to just present the physical events and testimony.
However, a friend of mine asked directly: "For what reason would the Royal Family have wanted Diana dead?" Despite all the circumstantial above, that's what he sees as the key and he might be right. That's a minefield to answer and it depends on how kooky you'd like that answer.
At a moderate, plausible level, the Muslim baby seems a good enough reason but it doesn't seem to hold up, given Charles' wanting to be the defender of the faiths, plural. The pro-Muslim bias of the British FCO, upper class and media also seem to belie that reason. On the other hand, as a Stewart, descended from the Merovingians [and the Royal Family is pretty hot on lineage], Dodi's baby might well have been seen as upsetting the applecart.
For me, it had to be that Diana was going to or had already spilled the beans on what the Royal Family was really up to. Andrew Morton suggested that she let the cat out of the bag on the Fergie divorce to take the heat of herself. Near the end, she gave the impression of being quite a loose cannon and I don't think she was above getting her own back.
Some have suggested that she wouldn't have been privy to too many family secrets, despite being Charles' wife. No, but she may have been privy to something else - some things she'd witnessed or had been drawn into or had sworn never to reveal. The dozen or so figures in the tunnel that night, if the testimony of Morel can be counted [and who knows, one way or the other], points to a ritualistic aspect to this thing.
The minimum which can be said is that it was extreme negligence, manslaughter, in other words, on the part of the paparazzi. The Henri drunkenness seems clearly a beat up. On the other hand, if Diana's surmise, her fear, was correct and not just paranoia, then what better way to do it than for an agent to use a Dazer, whilst masquerading as paparazzi? Blame falls on the photographers - everyone's happy.
Labels: chronology, diana, tribute
