|
The
main conspiracy points of this incident are outlined below. (They
are in no particular order).
7th
April 2008: Verdict of the jury in the Coroner's inquest into
the Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Mr Dodi Al fayed: "The
verdict is unlawful killing, grossly negligent driving of the following
vehicles and of the Mercedes." [link]
Conspiracy | Possible
explanation | 1)
There was a blinding flash from an antipersonnel stunning device just before the
crash. This lit up the tunnel, dazzling driver Henri Paul who lost control of
the vehicle because of this.
| This
is unsubstantiated. Richard
Tomlinson, the former MI6 officer, has claimed that a similar method was part
of a plan to assassinate the then Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1992. Tomlinson
has also apparently claimed that Henry Paul was in the pay of the British secret
service. | 2)
A Fiat Uno deliberately clipped Diana's Mercedes as it entered the Alma tunnel.
It's alleged driver, paparazzo James Andanson, died two years later in a burned-out
car.
| The
car has never been traced.
The French probe into the accident says the white Fiat Uno did not cause the crash. | | 3)
After their marriage, Dodi and Diana were to live in the Villa Windsor, the former
Paris mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, which was being leased to Mohammed
al-Fayed, Dodi's father. The couple had actually been to the villa to see an interior
decorator to prepare the house for them to move in to. | Dodi
and Diana did take in a tour of the villa hours before the crash, apparently on
orders from al-Fayed, however bodyguard Kez Wingfield, speaking to the News of
the World, 28th August 2005, denied claims that there was an interior decorator
with them with the intention to model the villa into a home for the couple. According
to Wingfield they were in the house only 31 minutes, Diana was 'bored stiff'.
| | 4)
Pont d'Alma underpass is proven accident spot. | Computerized
video simulations can reproduce the accident using the car's speed, its weight
with four adults aboard, the condition of the road surface, the slope of the road,
the weather, visibility and other traffic. No
driver, however skilled, would have been able to prevent the Mercedes crashing
if it was traveling at that speed in those circumstances. | 5)
The Mercedes had been involved in a crash only nine months earlier. | It
is true that the car had been involved in what has been described as a 'shunt'
nine months earlier. French
experts from the Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale,
who examined the vehicle, have concluded the Mercedes had low mileage and had
been in perfect mechanical and working order. | | 6)
Diana was pregnant to Dodi Fayed. Supporters
cite rumors that the princess had a pregnancy scan weeks before her death and
point to photographs of her, taken around the same time, showing alleged slight
swelling in her stomach. |
The Metropolitan Police have dismissed the story.
Friends have dismissed the pregnancy claim as nonsense. Dr John Burton, the former
royal coroner who was present during the princess's post-mortem, has also insisted
that she was not pregnant. Supporters
of the theory say, however, that because the princess was embalmed the formaldehyde
used in the process would have corrupted the results of a pregnancy test and given
a false result. | | 7)
Diana was planning an engagement to Dodi Fayed. The apparent evidence is a £130,000
diamond engagement ring said to have been bought for the princess at the Monte
Carlo branch of Repossi (for collection in the Paris branch) when their yacht
was moored off Monte Carlo. Security cameras show Dodi apparently examining a
ring inside the Paris branch of Repossi hours before the fatal crash. | Bodyguard
Kez Wingfield, as reported in the News of The World, 28th August 2005, says that
no ring was purchased in Monte Carlo. Wingfield says that Diana and Dodi didn't
leave his sight at any time. Wingfield
also
claims that Dodi and Diana never exhibited any signs of romance, describing their
relationship as like a brother and sister's. | | 8)
One of the most widely propounded theories, supported by Mohammed al-Fayed, whose
son Dodi, also died in the crash, is that the princess was the victim of a 'horrendous'
murder organized by the British establishment, and possibly carried out by MI6
officers, brought about because of alarm in royal and government circles about
Diana's relationship with his son, who was a Muslim. | Michael
Burgess, The Observer 28th August 2005: "All
the 'conspiracy theories' are mainly the product of Mohammed al-Fayed and a brilliant
PR campaign run by former journalists and apparatchicks at Harrods." "With
a budget of more than £5 million, its central aim is to discredit the French
investigation. Fayed has recently been distributing a video The Mystery of the
Alma Tunnel, in which he says: 'I pledge my life to bring Prince Philip and his
terrorist thugs to justice before the British people and the people of the world.'"
| 9)
Ex-butler Paul Burrell has produced a document in which Diana claims Prince
Charles was plotting to kill her in a car accident. | Michael
Burgess, The Observer 28th August 2005: "French police contacts I spoke to
said they were aware that Diana had often spoken of a threat to her life, but
it did not affect the facts of the accident." Martin
Bentham: "The most senior French investigator dismissed this as 'absurd'."
| | 10)
Driver, Henri Paul, was an MI6 agent who sacrificed his life to remove Diana and
Dodi. | Less
easy to account for is the high level of carbon monoxide in Paul's blood. His
parents claim that this could not have been present if he died instantly, as is
officially believed, and that therefore his blood sample, which also contained
the alcohol and drugs, had been swapped. (See
11) | 11)
Driver Henri Paul's blood alcohol level was very high, however we see him walking
apparently sober in security camera footage in The Ritz only moments before the
crash. Advocates
of this conspiracy theory claim, among other things, that the drink and drug tests
carried out on Henri Paul, the chauffeur on the fatal journey, were falsified
and that the findings of the original post-mortem, that he was three times over
the drink drive limit and had taken medication incompatible with alcohol, were
wrong. | "The
analysis of his blood showed a concentration of alcohol at an illicit level,"
a statement said. The
legal limit of alcohol in a driver's blood in France is 0.5 grams per liter of
blood, the equivalent of two glasses of beer or one glass of wine. Prosecutors
said Henri Paul's blood-alcohol level was 1.75 grams. 24
Sept 2006: Latest news from the investigation into the crash, points to the possibility
that French officials could have mixed up the blood samples from Henri Paul with
another person. This is after it is alleged that the French hospital mixed up
Henri Paul and Dodi's bodies in the hours after the crash. If this is true then
it brings into doubt the official explanation that it was a case of drunk driving. 5th
October 2007: Video evidence submitted to the Diana Inquest shows Henri Paul perfectly
sober tying his shoelaces on an hour before driving the car which crashed. |
Tragic
Postscript: Diana and Dodi would both probably have survived if they were wearing
seat belts. | Car
wreckage |  |
14th
December 2006 The Stevens Report into the death of Diana Princess of Wales has
been published today. To download a copy go here. |
Was
the death of Princess Diana, on August 31, 1997, anything other than a tragic
accident caused by a drunk driver in a known accident black spot?
