Soon after, the paparazzi were arrested. They became the first guilty party. With the snappers behind bars, police took no notice of what Petel was saying. He had seen no paparazzi around him. Or around the Mercedes. And he was surprised to find himself bundled into a van in handcuffs and taken to Paris police headquarters ... That night the police briefed the press Petel was lying. By suppressing Petel’s evidence, the police could blame photographers. ibid.
Backed by al-Fayed they got four of Europe’s top pathologists to examine the post-mortem report. They dissected the autopsy. And listed twenty-eight critical errors that made the autopsy unreliable. They included: the autopsy was not timed; no precise description of how Henri Paul’s body was identified; no explanation for 20.7% carbon monoxide; the final conclusions of the four pathologists was damning: ‘The results on carbon monoxide in the blood are inexplicable, as inexplicable as the attitude of Dr Pepin and Professor Lecomte who continue to present arguments that have no rigour and no scientific value to justify their results. The hypothesis that there was a mix-up in the samples needs to be seriously considered’. ibid.
The Mercedes Diana used had been stolen three months earlier – its electronics ripped out. ibid.
Some evidence seemed to have gone missing. Some evidence doesn’t seem to have been followed up. ibid.
The police said they’d found debris from a white Fiat Uno in the tunnel. It was suggested the Fiat was in front of the Mercedes. The police started a massive police operation, but only questioned owners of white Fiat Unos in the Paris area. They drew a blank. But al-Fayed’s detectives did better and tracked down this Fiat Uno. Its rear tail light had been fixed. And it belonged to a paparazzi. His name was James Andanson ... During the summer Diana had been photographed by James Andanson ... with political connections at the highest level ... French security services had evidence Andanson was in the Alma tunnel. ibid.
In June 2000 Andanson apparently committed suicide by setting fire to himself in his car on this piece of army land. ibid.
The true causes of the crash are complex and murky. ibid.
Impossible! More than 20% of carbon monoxide. You can’t drive. You can’t stand straight. Francois Meyer, Paul family lawyer
Evidence was provided to me that there was a conspiracy to assassinate her. David Cohen, author Diana: Death of a Goddess
There are ten known cameras that were lining the route that night ... All of those cameras were pointing inwards towards the buildings that housed them, so none of them were pointing toward to road. So we have allegedly no footage of Diana’s journey or of the crash itself. Jon King, televised interview
We know for sure now that none of the occupants were wearing their seat-belts. Which is odd really but certainly in Diana’s case it’s very strange because the minute the news of her death reached Britain all of her closest friends started to say, Why wasn’t she wearing a seat-belt? It had become a religion for her to wear a seat-belt. She always wore her seat-belt. It was an obsession for her. But now we know strangely from Lord Stephen’s report again that Diana’s seat-belt in particular was jammed in the retracted position. ibid.
Eye-witness accounts suggest very strongly that the pillion rider fired what we believe to be an anti-personnel strobe gun, flash gun, into the face of Henri Paul, which can blind a person for up to three minutes. Jon King, author Princess Diana: The Hidden Evidence
Henri Paul was hired by MI6 to act on their behalf that night. Jon King
Well there’s certainly plenty of evidence now to suggest that Henri Paul was an asset of both British and French intelligence. We know he was working for the DST which is the French MI6 ... In total about £175,000 deposited in cash ... In the last eight months of his life he deposited around £40,000 to £44,000 in cash when he’s only earning £20,000 a year ... Also the ridiculously high levels of carbon monoxide they found in his blood – 20.7% Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Jon King, co-author (& Beveridge), Princess Diana: The Hidden Evidence
This Mercedes was stolen prior to the accident – stolen by an armed gang of three at gunpoint ... This car was found a few days later with nothing missing, nothing wrong with it except the little microchip, effectively the car’s computer that certainly controls the car’s steering and brakes. ibid.
Ten years ago now I was told very specifically that there had been an assassination attempt on Camilla Parker Bowles, and interestingly enough, that assassination attempt had taken the form of a road traffic accident. Camilla had survived a near-fatal car crash just about six weeks before Diana’s own car crash claimed her life ... That Diana’s death was the result of the failure to assassinate Camilla Parker Bowles. ibid. Jon King, interview Lady Die
The speedometer – the stories that came out immediately after the crash ... plastered all over the British press anyway, was that the speedometer had been stuck – jammed on 192 kilometres per hour – on impact ... It’s nonsense. ibid.
I started to go down the curve and I saw headlights blinking. This car was going quite fast. Then I heard an implosion. I thought it was my exhaust ... And then I heard a loud boom. It was the car crashing against the pillar. I got hold of the person in the back. She’d fallen against the back of the passenger seat and was bent over the seat. I started to move her back. Then at that moment her head goes back. I see blood coming out of her ears and blood coming out of her nose. I said to myself, That’s weird. I know this person. Eric Petel, driving behind Mercedes
70,027. And a very senior officer – I won’t give his name – he simply said it would be best if I did not make myself known. It felt very much like a threat ... They tell me the accident could not have happened like that. Eric Petel
We were just walking down John F Kennedy Avenue and we heard a loud explosion ... It was the thunder that got my attention. Tom Richardson, outside tunnel
With the recordings completed in the tunnel, the final step is to play them back to Richardson ... The tests certainly suggest that witnesses who thought they heard a bomb blast were probably mistaken. Unsolved History: Diana: Death of a Princess, Discovery 2003
I was expecting this to work well but not quite as well as it did work out actually. He was absolutely unequivocal that that was the sound that he heard – I think that we’ve adequately demonstrated that the crash alone did account for these booms and that it was the acoustics of the tunnel that did this. Jack Freytag, Audio Forensic Centre San Francisco
Everything indicated that it was a traffic accident between a car coming from this direction – the Mercedes arrived relatively quickly and it hit this other car that was moving slowly ... For us the accident was obvious. Obvious. Jean Claude Mules, former Criminal Brigade Commander
In Henri Paul none of that was present – his liver’s reported to be normal size, normal consistency, no evidence of fatty change ... There’s no mention in Henri Paul’s autopsy that there was any smell of alcohol in the stomach ... One would expect there would be heavy smell from the stomach in the course of the autopsy, and this was not recorded ... There is no evidence that Henri Paul was drunk or under the influence of alcohol. Dr David Posey, forensic pathologist
The bottom line is we really do not have an explanation for where this carbon monoxide level came from. Dr David Posey
Either the samples were contaminated from the stomach contents or there is the possibility the samples were accidentally switched. We’ll never know if this was Henri Paul’s blood. Dr David Posey
You don’t attack a big car with a small car. Jeff Miller, Safehouse Security
From day one it was like a tidal wave had landed on the photographers – without proof, without really knowing what had happened or waiting for any sort of conclusion to be drawn. It was the photographers who were thrown to the mob. It was their fault. It was them. There wasn’t even any point in having a trial because it was them for sure. They killed her. Pierre Hounsfield, press photographer
We were held in custody cells for two and a half days in a room with a window and a wooden bench. Jacques Langevin, press photographer
Whatever I told the French police that day – trying to just get to the French police to just give whatever we saw or didn’t see ... It was as if they really didn’t care. Robin Firestone, interview Fox News
Mohammed al-Fayed kept up the pressure on the photographers because the alternative was to say my employee was drunk, was responsible for the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. James Whitaker, royal correspondent Daily Mirror, televised interview
He [Henri Paul] also I’m afraid worked for the British Intelligence and the French Intelligence. He had twelve different bank accounts. I don’t think that a head of security and chauffeur normally has twelve different bank accounts. Certainly something very strange was going on. Michael Cole, Mohamed al-Fayed’s spokesman
As the Mercedes carrying Diana entered the Alma tunnel it lurched to the left to try and avoid a slow-moving Fiat Uno in front of it. The driver Henri Paul lost control. The car slammed into the thirteenth concrete pillar at sixty-five miles an hour. The force of the impact removed the front bumper. The car then spun round one hundred and eighty degrees and smashed into the opposite wall. Diana: The Witness in the Tunnel, Channel 4 2007
He [Dodi Fayed] was talking to me on the phone. He say, Dad, I’m arriving tomorrow. I brought the engagement ring. Diana is pregnant ... She herself took the phone and told me the good news. Mohamed al Fayed, interview Fox News