from james's desk

Diana's Theory

Police services prepare to take away the car in which Diana died in this Aug. 31, 1997 photo in Paris. (AP / Jerome Delay)


In regards to this theory, I think a lot of people are guilty in contributing to Princess Diana's death. A real shame. I believe there was a plan to erase Diana, almost reminicent of the Marilyn Monroe coverup.

Read on:

Conspiracy theorists press case on Diana's death

Updated Wed. Dec. 13 2006 9:10 PM ET

Michael Stittle, CTV.ca News Staff

British officials are going to ridiculous lengths to prove what conspiracy theorists refuse to believe: Diana, Princess of Wales, died because her driver was drunk and crashed inside a Paris tunnel, as paparazzi buzzed about their car like flies.

In the ranks of celebrities whose deaths seem to reveal a web of sinister connections, Diana holds a place just beneath John F. Kennedy, slightly above Elvis Presley, and far above Kurt Cobain.

"You can equate this to various other figures who died tragically ... and have caught the popular imagination," Hugo Vickers, an expert on the Royal family, told CTV Newsnet. "There will always be conspiracy theories, and actually it doesn't really matter what the official inquiry says -- those people will still go on believing them."

Metropolitan Police Chief John Stevens has written a 400-page report -- roughly 160 pages shy of the 9/11 Commission Report's length -- in an attempt to clear up the mysteries surrounding Diana's death.

The report cost US$5 million and took three years of hard work. Stevens had access to about 400 interviews with witnesses and friends of the princess.

But his findings may just stir up more questions, such as the claim that U.S. agents tapped Diana's phone the very night she died. Britain's intelligence service MI-6 has claimed ignorance, while America's National Security Agency denied the charge.

Even if it's true, Vickers doubts the alleged spying had any connection to Diana's death.

"Since the nine years that she died we've had so many red herrings pushed in the way of things," he said. "This one seems to me slightly another one, to be quite honest."

Meanwhile, a public inquest into Diana's death is expected to resume in 2007, with preliminary hearings set for Jan. 8 and 9 at London's Royal Courts of Justice.

Mohamed al Fayed, millionaire owner of the famous London department store Harrods, has led the charge in Diana conspiracy theories.

Al Fayed is the father of Dodi Fayed, who also died in the crash. He claims his son was engaged to Diana and the father of her supposed unborn child.

What we know

* On Aug. 31, 1997, Diana left the Paris Ritz with Dodi Fayed for his apartment on Champs Elysees, travelling inside a black Mercedes 280S.
* Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones accompanied the couple and the car was driven by Henri Paul, an employee at the Ritz.
* As the car entered the Pont d'Alma underpass at roughly 160 kilometres per hour, Paul had a blood-alcohol level three times France's legal limit. He was unable to maintain control as several paparazzi pursued the car.
* The car struck one of the tunnel's concrete pillars head on, ricocheting into a wall and sustaining massive damage. Diana clung to life while at least one photographer took pictures of her prone body.
* She finally perished three-and-a-half hours later at Pitie Salpetriere Hospital. She was 36. About 50 other people have died in the same tunnel in the past 60 years.
* Trevor Rees-Jones was the only passenger wearing a seatbelt and the only survivor.
* Three photographers taking pictures of the crash were later charged with breaking French privacy laws, because the inside of a car is considered a private space. They were later acquitted.
* In 2002, France's highest court dropped manslaughter charges against nine photographers who pursued the car before it crashed, ruling they were not responsible.

Doubts, theories and pointing blame:


1) The Monarchy

In one of the more bizarre theories proposed by Mohamed al Fayed, he claims Diana's engagement to Dodi Fayed sparked a furious reaction from the Royal family, upset she was going to marry a man of Arab decent.

He also claims Diana may have been pregnant with his son's child.

On his personal website (which can be found here), he includes a letter sent to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which he accuses the government of inaction on investigating the couple's deaths.

Blair never replied, which only drove al Fayed to further accuse the British government of playing a role in the car crash. He also argued that a partial embalmment of Diana shortly after her death spoiled any pregnancy tests.

"I am beginning to wonder if Mr. Blair is not just discourteous but worried that my campaign to expose the murder of my beloved son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales, will also reveal the part played in their deaths by his Government," al Fayed writes.

"When the British Ambassador in Paris gave orders for Diana's body to be embalmed, he wilfully destroyed medical evidence not least that of her pregnancy. Such embalming was against French law. The Ambassador could not have done this without receiving orders which could only have come from the British Security Services, the Royal family in the person of the Duke of Edinburgh or from the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw. Perhaps Blair himself was personally involved."

2) Diana's own sense of endangerment

The princess had worried there was a plot to kill her in a car crash, according to a dubious letter she supposedly wrote just 10 months before her death. Her butler at the time, Paul Burrell, claimed he was told to safeguard the letter in case she was right.

The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, was one of the first newspapers to publish the letter, but blacked out the name Diana suspected of initiating the plot -- her husband Prince Charles.

Diana wrote that "this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous," adding that "my husband is planning 'an accident' in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry."

But the letter is undated and has no address. It was later published in a book by Burrell with the Mirror's backing.

3) Diana's political influence

Diana, a vocal opponent of landmines, had a growing political influence on the issue. Like many celebrity-activists before her (notably John Lennon), conspiracy theorists claim she was tracked by U.S. intelligence officials.

"The public profile she took on land mines certainly didn't endear her to some countries and that might have been a problem for her," Nick Fielding, an author on intelligence issues and former Sunday Times journalist, told CTV Newsnet.

"But I don't think it would have been a big issue for most Western countries -- most UN members, in fact, because there are international landmine conventions against landmines to which most countries are signatories."

Canada and Britain are among the nations that have signed on to the UN's 1997 antipersonnel mine-ban treaty. But one notable absence is the United States.

Henri Paul, who was driving the car during the fatal accident that lefe Princess Diana, her friend Dodi Fayed and himself dead is seen in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

Henri Paul, who was driving the car during the fatal accident that lefe Princess Diana, her friend Dodi Fayed and himself dead is seen in this undated photo. (AP Photo)

4) Henri Paul: secret agent

Henri Paul, the head of security at the Ritz where Diana stayed, was a French intelligence agent working for Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), the country's domestic intelligence agency.

At the last moment, Paul replaced Diana's regular driver. Henri had already been paid about US$3,600 for information about the princess. Details of his whereabouts between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. (when they left) are largely unknown.

Despite later accounts of the tragedy, Paul was not drunk. Despite his reputation as a heavy drinker, he had only two drinks at the hotel and video footage before the crash showed him walking steadily.

5) The White Fiat Uno

French investigators examining the scene of the crash believed a white Fiat Uno may have grazed Diana's car before the crash, possibly in an intentional move to kill her.

As proof, witnesses reportedly saw a white car leaving the tunnel around the same time, while evidence at the scene included broken pieces of what was believed to be a Fiat Uno.

Photographs of Diana's car taken shortly after the crash also suggest their were scrapes on the back of the vehicle and flecks of white paint.

Private investigators hired by al Fayed traced clues to a white Fiat Uno owned by a professional photographer, James Andanson, who later killed himself -- although al Fayed believes he may have been murdered.

Although French police eventually ruled out Andanson's Fiat Uno as having anything to do with the crash, al Fayed remains convinced a Fiat Uno was involved.

"Since at least one eyewitness suggested that the white Fiat Uno was 'waiting' for the Mercedes, there is also the sinister possibility that, at the mouth of the tunnel, the Fiat deliberately collided with the Mercedes to force it off course," he claims on his website.

posted by james @ 8:25 AM