Princess Diana: An English Murder

In July 1999, newspapers of the world reported that the car crash in the Alma tunnel had occurred because of Mercedes driver Henrie Paul who was also the chief of the Ritz security service. The investigators insisted that the driver was drunk. An official spokesperson of Al-Fayed says that at first it was officially reported that the car was moving at a speed of 180 kilometers per hour and thus got into a traffic accident. But now it is written in the case that the accident occurred when the car was moving at a speed of just 60 kilometers per hour. That was a rather sensational statement. According to the investigation, blood tests of the driver proved that he was awfully drunk at the moment of the tragedy. The alcohol level in his blood made up 1.78 pro mils which was equal to drinking ten glasses of wine. But this amount of level would have certainly changed the driver’s behavior. However, none of the people who saw the driver and the celebrities in the hotel noticed that the man could be drunk that hard. It is known that Dodi would not let a drunk driver drive his car, so it is strange that the press reports that the tragedy occurred because of a drunk driver.

The driver’s blood test was ready in 24 hours after the tragedy but was officially reported just in two years. Within the two years after the tragedy the investigation was still working to prove the paparazzo’s guilt of the crime.

It is not ruled out however that blood samples could be confused in the morgue, and some false blood tests could be taken for the blood test of Henrie Paul.

The investigation insists that Henrie Paul is the official culprit of the tragedy and shows him an absolute alcoholic. Is it really possible that the security chief of the elite hotel could be an alcoholic and drug addict as the investigation presents him? Acquaintances said he was no alcoholic at all. What is more, shortly before the tragedy Henrie Paul had his blood tests done privately to extend his flying license as he was an amateur pilot. Doctors discovered no traces of latent alcoholism or any drugs in his blood.

Forty minutes before the tragedy Diana had no idea that he and Dodi would not go in the car of Dodi’s bodyguard. The investigation said they had to go in an auto of the Ritz security chief Henrie Paul because the bodyguard’s car was out of order which was not true as the bodyguard confessed eight years later.

Dina’s bodyguard took a front seat close to the driver which is the most dangerous place in case a traffic accident occurs but survived. But Dodi and Diana who were taking the rear seats died. Unfortunately, the survivor can not tell anything about the car accident as he has amnesia. It is not clear if he may recover one day to tell something about the tunnel tragedy.

Experts say that the Princess died because doctors still hesitated to take her to the hospital. Some of them believed it was too late to go to a hospital, so some procedures were done right in an ambulance car.

When Diana died it was decided that her body would be taken to London with a special flight. It usually takes not more than an hour to fly to London from Paris, and there were no reasons to keep Diana’s body in Paris longer. When the body was taken to a hospital in London it turned out that Diana was embalmed promptly after her death which was contrary to the established regulations. So, preparation for burial was started right in Paris. That was done contrary to the French law on the instructions of the British Embassy that had got necessary instructions from a certain person. It was a problem to determine the person who had given such instructions. Medications usually used for embalming make it impossible to have repeated expertise of a dead body. The embalming of the Princess’s body was obviously done to make it impossible for British doctors to find out what was Diana’s health condition seconds before the tragedy.

The strange fact gave rise to a version saying that some gas was probably spread in the auto where Diana and Dodi were leaving the hotel which made the driver loose his senses and provoked the tragedy. There is no opportunity to confirm or to refute the version.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father is perfectly sure that Diana’s body was embalmed to conceal the fact of her pregnancy from Dodi. All documents concerning the tragedy in the Alma tunnel are classified; it is just made public that Diana died because of internal hemorrhage.

Investigators of Paris insist that although many experts say that the car accident was definitely a plot against the Princess everything that occurred in the French tunnel was a mere car accident.

In Russia, Igor Prokopenko made a film titled "An English Murder." The author of the film says the film was not at all an attempt to go into details of the Royal Family’s life. Diana’s death was the most scandalous tragedy after killing US President John F. Kennedy and the film-makers just wanted to understand how crimes of the kind were investigated in the West. Igor Prokopenko is sure that American special services played a certain role in the story. It is known that they were spying on Diana especially during the last months of her life. We could certainly learn many interesting facts in connection with her tragic death if they made their files concerning Diana unclassified.

Pavel Sadkov
Komsomolskaya Pravda

Translated by Maria Gousseva
Pravda.ru

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