The mysterious death of Princess Diana continues to excite the public. Princess Diana, biography, news, photos When Princess Diana died
Princess Diana, the first wife of Prince Charles, was one of the most popular women in the world. Queen of hearts, people's princess... Whatever they called her! A year after the divorce from the prince Welsh lady Di tragically died in a terrible car accident that occurred in Paris, under Place Alma, in an underground tunnel. Princess Diana's date of death was August 31, 1997. She was 36 years old. Whether the accident was accidental or planned still remains a mystery. The question still excites the minds and hearts of hundreds of people.
Circumstances of the tragedy
On the evening of August 30, Lady Di, accompanied by Egyptian billionaire Dodi al-Fayed, arrived at the restaurant of the Ritz Hotel. After dinner, around midnight, the couple left the hotel building through the back door and got into a black car, in which a security guard and driver were waiting for them. At 00:15, the Mercedes drove away from the service entrance, moving sharply in an attempt to hide from the annoying paparazzi. But the photographers went in pursuit. The trip was the last in the life of the people's favorite. Only the bodyguard survived the accident, but he cannot remember anything because he suffers from amnesia.
The Mystery of Princess Diana's Death
The investigation initially blamed the tragedy on reporters chasing a black Mercedes on scooters. A version was put forward that one of them allegedly interfered with the car, and the driver, in an attempt to avoid a collision, crashed into a bridge support. However, eyewitnesses claimed that the paparazzi entered the tunnel later than the Mercedes, which means they could not have caused the accident.
Later, the investigation suggested that at the moment when the car in which Lady Di was in ended up in the tunnel, there was already another car there - a white Fiat-Uno. This was confirmed by those found on accident scene fragments and the testimony of some eyewitnesses who testified that they saw a car zigzagging out of the tunnel a couple of seconds after the accident. The detective police even determined the year of manufacture and the exact characteristics of the car, but they were never able to find it or the driver. And later it turned out that the white Fiat was driven by one of the most successful and famous Parisian paparazzi, James Andanson. They could not prove that the photographer was involved in the accident that led to the death of Princess Diana. And some time later, Andanson’s body was found in a burnt car in the French Alps.
As new details of the incident became clear, new versions appeared. It was suggested that the death of Princess Diana was the work of the British intelligence services, whose weapons include the media writing that perhaps a laser was used in the tunnel to blind the driver of the Mercedes.
Two years after the tragedy, all the world's newspapers published a new sensational statement made by the investigation. Based on the results of the checks, it was established that the blame for what happened lay with Henri Paul, the driver of the car, who also died in this accident. It turned out that he was very drunk at the time of the accident. This version is still considered the main one.
New facts
16 years have passed, and in the summer of 2013 the world community again began to discuss the death of Princess Diana. And the reason was new, truly sensational evidence. Information has emerged that the death of Lady Di was orchestrated by the British intelligence services. But this has already been discussed? Yes, but now concrete facts have emerged. During trial over one British serviceman, it accidentally turned out that he had information that the death of Princess Diana was ordered by an elite unit. The information received still raises many questions. The London police began to carefully study the new information and promised to evaluate its reliability and adequacy.
The tragedy occurred on August 31, 1997, when the car in which Princess Diana was traveling, under mysterious circumstances, crashed into the 13th column of the tunnel under the Alma Bridge. Then everything was attributed to the driver being drunk and an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances. Was this really so? A few years later, a list of facts appears that can take a different look at the “accident” on that fateful day.
A surprise for many was the letter from Princess Diana herself, written by her 10 months before her own death, which was published in 2003 by the English newspaper “Daily Mirror”. Even then, in 1996, the princess was worried that her life was in the “most dangerous phase” and someone (the newspaper’s name was hidden) wanted to eliminate Diana by setting up a car accident. Such a turn of events would have paved the way for her ex-husband, Prince Charles, to remarry. According to Diana, for 15 years she was “harassed, terrorized and mentally tortured by the British system.” “I cried all this time as much as no one in the world cried, but my inner strength did not allow me to give up.” The princess felt something was wrong, as many people sense the approach of trouble, but did she really know about the impending assassination attempt? Was there really a conspiracy against Lady Di?
One of the first to suggest such a development of events was billionaire Mohammed Al-Fayed, the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who died along with Diana. However, the French special services, which investigated the circumstances of the car accident, concluded that the princess’s Mercedes with driver Henri Paul collided in the tunnel with the Fiat of one of the paparazzi while trying to overtake. Wanting to avoid a collision, Paul drove the car to the side and crashed into the ill-fated 13th column. From that very moment, questions began to arise to which there are still no clear answers.
According to Mohamed Al-Fayed, the driver Henri Paul was indeed involved in the accident, but not quite as the official version says. The billionaire claims that the presence of a large amount of alcohol in the driver’s blood is the machinations of doctors who are also involved in this case. In addition, according to Mohammed’s words, Paul was an informant for the British intelligence service M6. It also seems strange that paparazzi James Andanson, the driver of the Fiat Uno that Diana’s Mercedes collided with, died in 2000 under very strange circumstances: his body was found in a burned-out car in the forest. The police considered it a suicide, but Al-Fayed thinks differently.
Another interesting fact is that a few weeks after the photographer’s death, the agency where he worked was attacked. The armed men took the workers hostage and fled only after they had taken out all the photographic materials and equipment. It later became known that the day after the accident, a photographer from the same agency, Lionel Cherrault, was left in the tunnel without equipment and materials. The police tried by all means to cover up this case, which, in principle, they succeeded in doing.
It also seems strange that the cameras monitoring the route from the Ritz Hotel, where Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed lived, to the exit from the tunnel around the clock, were for some reason turned off during the passage of the Mercedes.
Richard Tomlinson, an officer of the British intelligence service M6, shared interesting information regarding this case under oath. For example, that immediately before the death of the princess, two M6 special agents arrived in Paris, and in the Ritz hotel itself, M6 had its own informant. Tomlinson is confident that this informant was none other than the driver Henri Paul. Maybe that’s why the driver had two thousand pounds sterling in cash and one hundred thousand in his bank account at the time of the accident, with a salary of 23 thousand a year.
The official version of the driver’s intoxication is more than shaky, largely relying on indirect and inaccurate evidence. For example, after the accident, the driver's body lay in the sun for a long time in very hot weather instead of being placed in the refrigerator. In the heat, the blood “fermented” quite quickly, after which it was not possible to distinguish the alcohol consumed from the alcohol produced as a result of changes in the body. The second “irrefutable evidence” of the driver’s alcoholism is that he was taking the drug tiapride, which is often prescribed to alcoholics. However, tiapride is also used as a sleeping pill and sedative. It was precisely the calming effect that Henri Paul could have sought after a break with his family!
When the driver was autopsied, no signs of alcoholism were found in his liver, and just before the crash, Paul underwent a full medical examination to renew his pilot's license. However, Mohammed Al-Fayed's sources claim that before the accident, carbon monoxide was found in Henri Paul's blood, which can throw a person out of balance in life. How did it get into the driver’s body and, most importantly, who benefited from it? Surely the French intelligence services know something about this issue, but so far they are in no hurry to share information.
A bright flashing light, described by several witnesses, may have helped the tragedy unfold. About it for a long time said Brenda Wills and Françoise Levistre, talking about the bright strobe light in the tunnel under the Alma bridge. Nobody took the words of the two women seriously (or wanted to accept them), despite the mention of these facts in authoritative periodicals. On the contrary, the witnesses, especially the Frenchwoman Levistre, were advised to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital.
The reference to the flashing light during the accident struck British intelligence officer Richard Tomlinson because he had access to secret M6 documents relating to the Milosevic affair. One of these documents outlined a plan to assassinate the Yugoslav leader: staging a car accident using bright flashing lights. (You can read about the effects of light under certain conditions in the article “Measuring.”)
Why were there no surveillance cameras in the tunnel, although no problems were noticed at the Ritz Hotel itself? Of course, this can be attributed to an accident or misunderstanding. But what really happened? May be, full picture We will never restore the events, although there is hope for an investigation by the French intelligence services. Will they share information with the common people?
Princess Diana. Last day in Paris
A film about the last weeks of the life of one of the most famous women 20th century - Diana, Princess of Wales. Diana's unexpected and tragic death in August 1997 shocked the world no less than the assassination of President Kennedy. From the very beginning, the tragedy that happened on August 31, 1997 was surrounded by many conflicting rumors and the most incredible assumptions.
Who killed Princess Diana?
Ten years ago, the worst car accident of the last century occurred. The legendary Lady Di, an English princess, a female symbol, died in a Paris tunnel (See the photo gallery “The Life Story of Princess Diana”). On August 27 and 28, the REN TV channel will show the documentary film “A Purely English Murder.” The authors conducted their own investigation and tried to find out whether this tragedy was an accident.
On August 31, 1997, at 0:27 a.m., the car containing Princess Diana, her friend Dodi al-Fayed, driver Henri Paul and Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rhys-Jones crashes into the 13th pillar of the bridge over the Alma tunnel. Dodi and driver Henri Paul die on the spot. Princess Diana will die at about 4 a.m. in hospital.
Version 1 Paparazzi killers?
The first version expressed by the investigation: several reporters who were riding scooters were to blame for the accident. They were chasing Diana's black Mercedes, and one of them may have interfered with the princess's car. The Mercedes driver, trying to avoid a collision, crashed into a concrete bridge support.
But, according to eyewitnesses, they entered the tunnel a few seconds after Diana’s Mercedes, which means they could not have caused the accident.
Lawyer Virginie Bardet:
— In fact, there is no evidence of the photographers’ guilt. The judge said: "There is no evidence of manslaughter in the actions of the photographers which led to the deaths of Diana, Dodi al-Fayed, Henri Paul and the incapacitation of Trevor Rhys-Jones."
Version 2 Mysterious “Fiat Uno”
The investigation puts forward new version: the cause of the accident was the car, which by that time was already in the tunnel. In the immediate vicinity of the crashed Mercedes, detective police discovered fragments of a Fiat Uno.
Jacques Mules, head of the detective police brigade: “The fragments we discovered rear light and paint particles made it possible to calculate all the characteristics of the Fiat Uno within 48 hours.
When interviewing eyewitnesses, the police allegedly found out that a white Fiat Uno drove out of the tunnel in a zigzag a few seconds after the accident. Moreover, the driver looked not at the road, but in the rearview mirror, as if he saw something, for example, a crashed car.
The detective police determined the exact characteristics of the car, its color and year of manufacture. But even with information about the car and a description of the driver’s appearance, the investigation was unable to find either the car or the driver.
Francis Gillery, author of his own independent investigation: “All cars of this brand in the country were checked, but none of them showed signs of a similar collision. The white Fiat Uno disappeared into the ground! And the eyewitnesses of the accident who saw him began to get confused in the testimony, from which it was not clear whether the white Fiat was at the scene of the tragedy at the ill-fated moment.”
It is interesting that the version about the white Fiat that allegedly caused the accident, as well as the information about the left turn signal found at the scene of the tragedy, was not made public immediately, but only two weeks after the incident.
Version 3British intelligence services
Only today are details becoming known that for some reason it was customary not to mention. As soon as a black Mercedes entered the tunnel, a bright flash of light suddenly cut through the twilight. It is so strong that everyone who observed it was blinded for a few seconds. And a moment later, the silence of the night is shattered by the squeal of brakes and the sound of a terrible impact. François Laviste was just leaving the tunnel at that time and was only a few meters from the scene of the tragedy. At first, the investigation accepted his testimony, and then recognized the only witness as unreliable.
The version spread at the suggestion of former MI6 employee Richard Thomplison. The former agent said that the circumstances of the death of Princess Diana remind him of the plan to assassinate Slobodan Milosevic, developed by the British intelligence services. The Yugoslav president was going to be blinded in the tunnel by a powerful flash.
The police are reluctant to include mention of the flash of light in the protocols. Eyewitnesses are nervous and insist on the veracity of their testimony. And a few months later, British and French newspapers published a sensational statement by former British intelligence agent Richard Tomplison that the latest laser weapons, which are in service with the intelligence services, may have been used in the Alma tunnel.
Fiat Uno is back on stage
But how could fragments of a car that would never be found appear at the scene of the incident? The media version is that the fragments of the Fiat were planted by those who prepared this accident in advance and wanted to disguise it as a regular accident. The press insists that these are British intelligence services.
The intelligence services knew that the white Fiat would definitely be next to Princess Diana's car that night. It was in the white Fiat that one of the most famous and successful paparazzi in Paris, James Andanson, drove. He couldn’t miss such an opportunity to make money from photographs of a celebrity couple that everyone was interested in...
The media suggested that the services simply could not prove the involvement of the photographer and his car in the accident, although they really hoped. Andanson was indeed in the tunnel that night. True, according to some of his colleagues who were at the Ritz Hotel on the evening of August 30, 1997, it was rare case when the photographer arrived at work without a car. And perhaps that is why the version developed by someone about Andanson’s guilt in the accident lost its central link even before Dodi and Diana left the hotel. On the other hand, Andanson could indeed have been involved in the accident. He repeatedly came to the attention of the al-Fayed family's security service, and for them, of course, it was no secret that Andersen was not only a successful photographer. Al-Fayed's security service allegedly managed to obtain evidence that the photographer was an agent of the British intelligence service. But Dodi’s father, for some reason, now does not consider it necessary to present them to the investigation. James Andanson was not a random figure in this tragedy.
Andanson was seen in the tunnel, and he was indeed one of the first there. They also saw a car at the scene of the tragedy that was very similar to his car, albeit with different license plates, possibly fake.
But then questions begin to which there is no answer. Why did the photographer, who spent several hours at the Ritz Hotel for the sake of a sensational photo, suddenly not waiting for Diana with Dodi al-Fayed, for no apparent reason left his post and went straight to the tunnel. After the accident, Andanson, without even waiting for the outcome, when a crowd just began to gather in the tunnel, suddenly disappears. Literally in the middle of the night - at 4 o'clock in the morning - he flies from Paris on the next flight to Corsica.
Some time later, in the French Pyrenees, his body will be found in a burnt car. While the police are establishing the identity of the deceased, unknown persons steal all the papers, photographs and computer disks related to the death of Princess Diana from the office of his Parisian photo agency.
If this is not a fatal coincidence, then Andanson was eliminated either as an unwanted witness or as the perpetrator of the murder.
In September 1999, another reporter, who was next to a mangled black Mercedes that ill-fated night, died in a Paris hospital. Reporter James Keith was preparing for minor knee surgery but told friends: "I have a feeling I won't be coming back." After being discharged from the hospital, the reporter was going to publish documents about the causes of the accident on the Alma Bridge, but within a few hours after his death, the Internet web page with details of the investigations and all materials were destroyed.
Who turned off the cameras?
The police officers working at the scene decide to include the recordings of road surveillance cameras in the case. It is from them that one can determine exactly how the accident occurred and how many cars were in the tunnel at the time of the collision. Called workers road service They don’t understand why there’s such a rush, and they just wonder why the films can’t be watched tomorrow morning. But when they open the boxes in which the video cameras are mounted, they are even more surprised. The video surveillance system, which works properly in all other points of Paris, by a strange coincidence, it was in the Alma tunnel that failed. One can only guess who or what caused this.
Version 4 Drunk driver
On July 5, 1999, almost two years later, newspapers from all over the world published a sensational statement from the investigation: the main blame for what happened in the Alma tunnel lies with the Mercedes driver Henri Paul. He was the chief of security at the Ritz Hotel and also died in this disaster. Investigators accuse him of driving drunk.
Michael Cowel, al-Fayed's official spokesman: “It was officially announced that he was driving the car at a speed of 180 km/h. Very fast. Now in the file it is written in small print: “The accident occurred at a speed of 60 (!) kilometers per hour.” Not 180 km/h, but 60!”
The statement that the driver was drunk sounded like a bolt from the blue. To prove or disprove this, you just need to take the deceased’s blood for analysis. However, it is this simple operation that will turn into a real detective story.
Jacques Mules, who was the first representative of the investigative authorities to arrive at the scene of the tragedy, said that a blood test showed the true state of affairs, which means that Henri Paul was indeed very drunk.
Jacques Mules, head of the detective police brigade: “Before leaving the Ritz, Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed were nervous. But the main thing that indicates an accident is the presence of alcohol - 1.78 ppm in the blood of the driver, Mr. Henri Paul. In addition, he was taking antidepressants, which also affected his driving behavior.”
Michael Cowel, al-Fayed's official spokesman: “The filming proves that Henri Paul behaved adequately in the hotel that evening, he talks to Dodi at such a distance, he talks to Diana. If even the slightest signs of intoxication had been revealed, Dodi, and he was very picky in this regard, would not have gone anywhere. He would have fired him altogether.”
To have that much alcohol in his blood, Henri Paul had to drink about 10 glasses of wine. Such intoxication could not have failed to be noticed by the photographers located near the hotel, but none of them indicated this in their testimony.
The examination data, indicating a state of severe intoxication, was ready within 24 hours after the autopsy. But this was officially announced only two years later. For 24 months, the investigation worked on the obviously weaker version of the guilt of the paparazzi or the presence of the Fiat Uno. And two years later, it’s unlikely that anyone who saw the hotel’s security chief, Henri Paul, that evening would be able to say with certainty whether he was completely sober.
A day after the accident, toxicology experts Gilbert Pépin and Dominique Lecomte had just completed a blood test on Henri Paul. The test tubes are placed first in a box and then in a refrigerator. The results are recorded in the protocol. According to what is written, the driver can be considered not just a little drunk, but simply drunk... But the numbers written in the column below are even more surprising: the level of carbon monoxide is 20.7%. If this is actually the case, the driver simply would not be able to stand on his feet, let alone drive the car. Only a person who committed suicide by inhaling gases from exhaust pipe car, could have had the same amount of carbon monoxide in the blood that was found in Paul’s blood...
Michael Cowel, al-Fayed's official spokesman: "It is more than likely that the blood samples were switched, either accidentally or deliberately. They were somehow confused. There were many mistakes with tags in the morgue, which has now been proven...”
The French intelligence services also have something to hide in this story. Due to the fact that the remaining corpses still cannot be found, it is no longer so important whether the test tubes were changed by accident or whether it was a specially prepared action. Something else is important. Someone really needed the investigation to last as long as possible. So that there is as much confusion as possible. Test tubes with Henri Paul's blood could well have been replaced with the blood of another person who committed suicide.
For a long time, the investigative authorities insisted that there could be no mistake. This is indeed the blood of Henri Paul. However, the film crew of the REN TV channel, as a result of their own investigation, managed to prove that the blood, in which traces of alcohol and carbon monoxide were found, did not belong to Princess Diana’s driver.
Jacques Mules, head of the detective police brigade, admitted to our film crew that with my own hands took test tubes with Henri Paul's blood and actually mixed up the numbers, giving away a test tube with the blood of a completely different person under the name of Princess Diana's driver.
Jacques Mules, head of the detective police brigade. “This is my mistake. The fact is that I worked for two days in a row and did not sleep at night. Due to fatigue, I mixed up the test tube numbers. I immediately informed the judge about this, but he said that it was not significant.”
It does not matter if the error was corrected immediately. And if not? What if, due to simple oversight or - even worse - deliberately, the results of the analysis remained falsified? There is still no answer to this question
Who is Henri Paul?
Henri Paul, head of security at the Ritz Hotel, is the only official culprit of the tragedy. In the investigative reports, he appears to be a complete neurasthenic and drunkard. Taxology experts point to the presence in Henri Paul’s blood, along with alcohol, of a significant amount of antidepressants. The doctor confirms that she prescribed Paul medications to treat depression. And to reduce cravings for alcohol, since, according to the doctor, the patient abused alcohol.
We decided to check whether the head of security at an elite hotel was actually an alcoholic and drug addict.
Cafe-restaurant "Le Grand Colbert". Henri Paul went here for dinner for many years.
Restaurant owner Joel Fleury: “I bought the restaurant in 1992. Henri Paul was already a regular here... He came here every week. No, he was not an alcoholic. It turned out that we practice in the same flight club - he flies light airplanes, I fly light helicopters.”
On the eve of the tragedy, Henri Paul undergoes a strict medical examination in order to renew his flying license. The doctor examines him and takes blood tests a day before the disaster.
Doctors found no traces of hidden alcoholism or traces of any medications in Henri.
After the death of Henri Paul, very large sums of money were discovered in his account, which, in theory, he could not earn. In total he had 1.2 million francs.
Boris Gromov, intelligence services historian: “Henri Paul, according to some British intelligence officers, was a full-time MI6 agent. His name was often mentioned in the files of this service. It is clear that there is nothing accidental here, and its role is clear. Because high-ranking government officials from various countries often stay at the Ritz Hotel... And serving there as the head of the security service is extremely beneficial for any intelligence service..."
40 minutes before the tragedy, Princess Diana still does not know that the driver of their car will not be Dodie’s personal bodyguard Ken Wingfield, but the head of the hotel’s security service, Henri Paul.
According to the version that the investigation initially had, his car turned out to be faulty. And so the couple set off in Henri Paul’s car. However, eight years later, Wingfield said his car was in good working order. It’s just that Henri Paul, as the head of the hotel’s security service, ordered Wingfield to stay and independently drove Diana and Dodi in his car along a different route. Why was Wingfield silent for so many years? What was he afraid of?
Diana's security guard Trevor Rhys-Jones, leaving the Ritz Hotel, sat down in his usual place - on the seat next to the driver, which is called the "dead man's seat." Due to the fact that during an accident it is most vulnerable. But Rhys-Jones survived. And Diana and Dodi al-Fayed, who were in the back seat, died. Today, the only survivor can say nothing about what happened in the tunnel. He has lost his memory and does not remember anything that would shed light on the events of that night. We can only hope that Rees-Jones will recover over time. But whether he will have time to say everything he remembers is unknown...
Dodi al-Fayed's bodyguard has been on the operating table for a long time. And despite the more severe wound, the doctors no longer doubted: the patient would live. At the same time, for some reason, they are trying to save Princess Diana in an ambulance.
The car is standing. It is impossible to perform procedures while moving.
In fact, according to experts, the princess died because someone decided that there was no need to go to the hospital. What is this, a mistake? Doctors' nerves? After all, they are people too.
Or maybe someone needed Diana to die?
When it was all over, the decision was made to send the princess's body on a special flight to London.
The plane from Paris to London flies no more than an hour. It would seem that there is no reason to linger in Paris, however, when the body of Princess Diana was taken to a British clinic, an incredible thing became clear. It turns out that before Diana’s corpse had time to cool down, it was hastily embalmed in violation of all the rules. And they prepare for burial. All this happens in Paris. While the special plane, without turning off the engine, waits for its sad cargo.
Michael Cowel, al-Fayed's official spokesman: "In violation of French law, this was carried out on behalf of the British Embassy, which, in turn, admits that it received instructions from a certain person."
The name of the person who ordered the embalming could not be established. The drugs used during embalming do not subsequently allow repeated examinations of the corpse. If British doctors wanted to re-find out what state, say, the princess’s state of health was in a few seconds before the disaster, they would not be able to do this.
That is why there are versions that perhaps some kind of gas was sprayed into the car, which made Henri Paul lose his orientation. Today it is impossible to confirm or refute this version.
Meanwhile, al-Fayed Sr. is convinced that Diana’s body was embalmed in order to hide the sensational fact. In his opinion, the English princess was pregnant with his son.
Virginie Bardet, photographers' lawyer: “We will never know whether Diana was pregnant. All documents are classified, only the cause of death has been made public: internal bleeding.”
EPILOGUE
The evidence collected is enough for numerous novels, but not enough for the Crown Prosecution Service. Non-functional road surveillance cameras at the scene of the tragedy, witnesses of the accident dying one after another, the never found white Fiat Uno, carbon dioxide from the driver’s blood from nowhere, fabulous sums in the driver’s accounts, the criminal slowness of the French doctors and the too obvious haste of those who embalmed the body pathologists... The version of the contract killing has not been refuted by anyone. But it hasn't been proven either.
Jacques Mules, head of the detective police brigade: “There was a banal accident. Everything has been checked and rechecked a thousand times. And the search for a conspiracy, the details pulled from the finger... Espionage passions are ordinary fruits of fantasy. In the eyes of Great Britain and even the entire West, Princess Diana was a symbol of a beautiful dream. A dream cannot die in such an ordinary way.”
BY THE WAY
On August 31, the day of Lady Di’s death, Channel One will show the new film “Princess Diana. Last day in Paris" (21.25). And immediately after it ends at 23.10 - the Oscar-winning film “The Queen” with Helen Miren in the title role. About the reaction to the tragedy of the royal family.
“We weren’t going to stir up the royal family’s dirty laundry.” But after the assassination of John Kennedy, the death of Princess Diana is perhaps the loudest story. Using the example of the investigation into the death of Princess Diana, we wanted to understand how such cases are investigated in the West. Is the government interfering? Do politics influence such investigations?
We managed to learn a lot. And I would strongly recommend that the authorities pay attention to the role of American intelligence services in this story. After all, it is known that Diana was the object of surveillance and control on their part, especially in recent months. If they opened up their materials on Diana, I’m sure we would learn a lot of interesting things. Or maybe they would even find out the name of the killer.
Diana's story is unusual. If she had shown a little hypocrisy, or, to put it simply, simple worldly wisdom, everything would have been perfect for her! But she preferred the right to love who she wants to the throne.
The story of Prince Charles, in my opinion, is still awaiting its assessment. After all, look, in spite of everything - the will of his mother, state interests, public opinion - he has loved his Camilla for many years now.
Everything else is small compared to this...
Princess Diana through the lens of Annie Leibovitz“This is not an accident,” Mohammed Al-Fayed publicly declared after learning of the death of his son Dodi and his beloved Princess Diana, “Everything was set up. And it was murder." The words of a parent crushed by grief could be attributed to a state of passion, but from August 31, 1997, the Egyptian billionaire stubbornly stood his ground for almost fifteen years. After all, he had facts on his side - strange, inconvenient for the official investigation, confusing the entire chain of events of that night and for some reason not taken into account by anyone.
Officially, Diana was investigated twice - in France (in 1999) and in the UK (in 2008). Both of them came to disappointing and rather superficial conclusions. They can be summarized as follows: the tragedy occurred due to the extremely careless driving of Henri Paul (the driver of the Mercedes), in whose blood alcohol was found, due to faulty seat belts, as well as due to the irresponsible behavior of the paparazzi, because of which Monsieur Paul had to exceed the speed limit.
Meanwhile, more than 20 years later, enough data has accumulated, as well as various hypotheses, confirming that the scenario of the accident in the Alma Bridge tunnel could not be at all what French and British investigators presented it as. All of them are intended to prove that Diana’s death was not accidental and lies on the conscience of the highest British circles (including the royal family). Lady Di knew too much and behaved too irresponsibly.
The number of such theories has long exceeded a hundred, but we have selected the most interesting of them - from those that have a right to exist to those that are absolutely fantastic. And at the same time they told how they were “fended off” by the official investigation.
Henri Paul was not drunk and was on an MI6 mission that night
Typically, the first person to come under the microscope during an accident investigation is the driver. This happened that time too. Henri died on the spot, and when the French investigation announced that the level of alcohol in the blood of the princess's driver was three times higher than the norm, the conclusion seemed so implausible to everyone that many immediately began to guess what was really behind this statement.
Indeed, could Diana, her bodyguard Trevor Rhys-Jones and Dodi Al-Fayed actually put themselves at risk and get into a car driven by a man who, according to British investigators, had drunk at least 5 glasses of Ricard aperitif?
Thus, thoughts arose that Henri did not actually consume alcohol that night, and the official version was fabricated only to hide the fact that he served in MI6. They say that British intelligence instructed him to set up an accident and thus kill the princess and her lover, and since Henri himself could not escape, the investigation came up with a story that he was drunk.
Meanwhile, an investigation by the London Metropolitan Police did not reveal any evidence that Henri Paul actually worked for British special agents. The fact of a single bribe of a Frenchman was also excluded, because the chances of surviving such an accident for an unprepared person are zero. Moreover, the Metropolitan Police established that that night Henri Paul had no idea that he would have a night shift with Diana and Dodi. His work day ended at 7 pm, and only a couple of hours later he received a call from the Ritz hotel service with instructions to take high-ranking clients to a restaurant.
By the way, Dodi Al-Fayed changed the restaurant at the very last moment (since the previous one was already crowded with paparazzi). Accordingly, the route changed. So it was certainly impossible for the driver to plan a competent operation to eliminate the princess that night - there was too little data.
As for the alcohol in the blood, several more tests later confirmed that Monsieur Paul had indeed drunk more than the legal limit that night, which, in principle, is quite consistent with the fact that his shift came to an end long before his called for overtime work. Meanwhile, the question of why no one from the Ritz service or Mercedes passengers smelled the smell of alcohol from the driver and trusted him to drive the princess remains open.
By the way, Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was also accused of working for MI6, but he survived, but did not remember any details due to a traumatic brain injury. According to the version presented by former British intelligence officer Richard Tomlinson, his physical fitness fully allowed him to survive the accident, and the “fabricated” amnesia served as an excellent help in not counting on him as a witness.
Diana was killed by the royal family because she was pregnant by a Muslim.
This version is also defended by Mohammed Al-Fayed. In his opinion, information about the affair of his former daughter-in-law with a Muslim so angered the royal family (they say that the mother of the future king cannot connect her life with a representative of the Islamic faith), that some of its representatives - primarily Prince Philip and Diana's sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale - decided intervene. Moreover, according to the testimony of Dodi’s father and some servants from his villa, Diana was expecting a child from her lover, and on September 1, the couple, along with the news of their engagement, were going to announce this as well.
A bastard born to the mother of the future king of Great Britain from a Muslim - this would be too much for the British royalties
Metropolitan Police presented several counterarguments to Mohammed's accusations. Firstly, by this time Diana had already mastered the art of communicating with the press, and it was not her style to talk about such high-profile news from her life without prior preparation. No preparations were made for a possible press conference at that time.
On August 30, Dodi Al-Fayed actually visited the Alberto Rossi jewelry boutique, however, judging by the recordings from CCTV cameras, he only left (!) with a catalog. Particularly meticulous ones calculated: Diana and Dodi knew each other for only seven weeks, and judging by the schedules of both, they spent no more than 23 days together - not the most respectable period for announcing an engagement. And in order to scare the royal family, because Diana had previously met with a representative of the Muslim faith.
His name was Hasnat Khan. He worked as a cardiologist in a London hospital and dated the princess for two years. Then Diana seriously thought about connecting her life with a Pakistani doctor and changing her religion for his sake, and, as the investigation found out, even Prince Charles gave her his blessing for this marriage. And how could it be otherwise? After all, despite their separation, the Prince of Wales still could not reunite with his beloved Camilla, and Diana’s potential happiness could well save him from popular hatred and give him a chance for a quiet life with the woman he loves.
As for Diana’s pregnancy, Mohammed announced it only in 2001 - you must agree, it’s too important information, to conceal it for three and a half years (of course, only if this is not another ploy to reopen the investigation). But, despite the skepticism, investigators checked this version as well. The princess's blood test for hCG was negative. In addition, judging by the testimony of her friends, Diana did not seek to marry Dodi and carefully monitored contraception.
On the other hand, the version that they got rid of Diana for being too amorous continued to grow stronger in people’s minds. During court hearings in 2007, Mohammed Al-Fayed's representative Michael Mansfield read to the jury a list of Diana's alleged lovers, based on the testimony of the princess's private secretary, Michael Gibbons. There were four names in the “Mansfield list”, and it ended with an ironic “and so on...”, which hinted that in fact the number of Lady Di’s men cannot be adequately calculated (read also: Princess Diana’s Favorite Men). In any other situation, such information could have played against the Princess of Wales, but this time it became part of the accusation against the royal family and the British authorities and is presented as a possible motive for the murder of Lady Spencer.
Diana was killed by a journalist (and he also worked for British intelligence)
Another “mystical” story floating around about the Parisian tragedy is connected with an old white Fiat Uno, whose traces were discovered by forensic scientists at the scene of the collision of the Mercedes in which the princess was. According to eyewitnesses, the Fiat was indeed in the tunnel, but after the accident the car instantly disappeared from the “crime scene”... and was no longer found within Paris (or was it poorly looked for?).
Suspicion immediately fell on the French photographer James Andonson, who had previously photographed the couple at the Al-Fayed villa in Saint-Tropez and owned exactly the same white Fiat. According to Dodi’s father, the accident could have happened because Andonson’s car “cut off” the Mercedes, as a result of which the driver lost control and crashed into the tunnel wall.
Andonson himself completely denied his involvement in the tragedy. According to him, he had not used the car for a long time, and it was not in the right condition (it was already in its ninth year) to catch up and “cut off” the Mercedes, which was racing at a speed of about 150 kilometers per hour. And the investigation agreed with him. Soon, however, the journalist rushed to urgently sell his Fiat, but this did not arouse suspicion. Traces of Mercedes paint were still not found on Andonson’s car.
Meanwhile, Mohammed stood his ground. Intelligence could well have bribed a photographer with extensive experience in spying on people to push the princess's car to the side just a little. His life, unlike the same Henri Paul, was practically not in danger.
The real car was never found, Andonson had some kind of alibi (his wife confirmed that on the night of the accident he was with her in Linieres, 177 miles from Paris, but, as is known, spouses do not testify against each other), so that the photographer was soon forgotten. And they remembered only three years later - in May 2000, when his incinerated body was found in a car parked in the middle of the forest. Investigators found a bullet mark in the back of his head and, based on the testimony of friends that Andonson’s work in recent weeks had greatly depressed him, they quickly returned a verdict of “suicide.”
However, the photographer’s family hastened to refute his friends’ words, saying that Andonson, on the contrary, had recently been in good spirits, and demanded an investigation into the murder. Mohammed Al-Fayed agreed with them, as well as the conspiracy theorists who supported him, who put forward the version that the photographer’s “suicide” was the work of MI6, who removed an inconvenient witness.
The intelligence services killed Diana themselves (without anyone's help)
In fact, conspiracy theorists have still not decided whose intelligence - Great Britain, France or the USA - took care of the elimination of the Princess of Wales. In any case, supporters of this theory have no doubt that special agents are to blame for Diana’s death. In their opinion, for the secret services to arrange such an accident is a simple matter. You just need to prepare the scenery and props in advance.
The first thing that raised questions among the investigation after the accident was unscheduled replacement Princess's Mercedes. The fact is that all day on August 31, Diana and Dodi were driving another car, but in the evening, technical employees suddenly found some kind of mystical breakdown in the car and took it away for repairs. Instead, the Ritz guests were given another Mercedes, which, by the way, also had its own faults (the car had already been in an accident) - for example, the seat belts did not work, and for some reason only on rear seats, where Diana and her lover were located. The princess, by the way, as her acquaintances testify, was always very scrupulous about her safety, so if the belts had worked, she would probably have buckled up and (who knows?), maybe even survived. After all, the death of Diana’s fastened guard has passed.
Due to the fact that the car had already suffered an accident, the driver was prohibited from reaching a speed of more than 60 kilometers per hour, but, as luck would have it, that night the princess’s Mercedes was overtaken by the paparazzi (by the way, according to one of the same theories, these were not photographers, and hired killers, so that if plan “A” fails, they can complete the mission), and you can’t tear yourself away from them at such a modest speed.
Finally, the culmination of the operation is the car entering a tunnel in which none of the 14 cameras are working. The latter is explained by the fact that surveillance in this area is controlled not by the police or private owners, but by the Paris Urban Transport Society, an organization that closes at 11 pm. The cameras remain on, but they do not record anything, and the only chance to see what is happening is to make sure there is a person sitting in front of the monitor. There was no such person that night.
They “help” the driver to lose control: first they cut him off (which has been definitely proven), and then they blind him with a bright flash of light (this was confirmed by witnesses). This technique, as former MI6 officer Richard Tomlinson later told investigators, is a favorite technique of the intelligence services. According to him, intelligence invented this method specifically for the assassination of Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1992. Although later the Metropolitan Police, to which the intelligence service kindly opened the doors of its offices specifically to check the testimony of its former employee, denied Mr. Tomlinson’s words. It turned out that the British had no plans to assassinate Milosevic (as the former agent himself later admitted). The police then found a project to assassinate another Serbian politician, but there were no hints of the use of a flash.
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses admitted that there was an outbreak. But what was missing was an ambulance that quickly arrived at the scene of the accident. Doctors were then called at 12:26 at night, but Princess Diana was delivered to the hospital only at 2:06 - too slow for such a high-ranking patient. And quite suspicious.
That night they wanted to kill Dodi, not Diana
One of the most implausible theories, but still it was put forward by conspiracy theorists for consideration. According to this hypothesis, the "#1 target" that night was not Diana, but Mohammed Al-Fayed. More precisely, his son, by killing whom, the enemies of the Egyptian billionaire could settle scores with him. Diana's death was only a cover for the operation, so that the police would not even think about involving the businessman's ill-wishers as witnesses.
A few years before the tragedy, Mohammed actually managed to make enemies for himself. He fought to acquire the London department store Harrods, was convicted of illegally financing British conservatives, and was also involved in several criminal cases on suspicion of embezzlement and fraud.
The Egyptian businessman always avoided justice, but, according to some conspiracy theorists, his enemies could well take revenge on him on their own - by arranging an accident for his heir in a Paris tunnel.
Diana faked her death and now lives happily away from prying eyes
And for dessert - the most fantastic theory of Diana’s death, which, however, also has its followers. According to her, the Princess of Wales deliberately faked her own death in order to start a new life away from the paparazzi, royal court and fans.
Several facts prompted this idea for some conspiracy theorists. Firstly, some time before the tragedy, Diana more than once admitted to her associates that they wanted to kill her - and precisely by organizing the accident. Such evidence is available, for example, from the princess’s butler Paul Barella, to whom Diana sent a letter back in 1993 in which she admitted that she foresaw her death. In her opinion, it should have been an accident that would open the way for Charles to marry... no, not with Camilla. Then Lady Di was sure that her husband was cheating on her with their children’s nanny, Tiggy Legg-Brook. But that's not what we're talking about now.
Perhaps this is how Diana prepared the ground for her own “death” and this is how she set up Charles, whom she hated? Well, the script looks like a high-quality thriller, but is still difficult to execute outside of the stage.
Secondly, supporters of this theory complain that no one has ever shown the princess’s body to the general public. Her body was buried in a closed coffin, and only a few had a chance to see her in the last minutes before she went to the secluded Spencer Island in Northamptonshire.
Yes, knowing the eccentric character of the Princess of Wales, such an idea could well have occurred to her. But so that she begins to implement it? This scenario is only suitable for crazy conspiracy theories.
A bright, amazing woman, an extraordinary personality, one of the most famous people of her time - that’s exactly what Diana, Princess of Wales was. The people of Great Britain adored her, calling her the Queen of Hearts, and the sympathy of the whole world was manifested in the short but warm nickname Lady Di, which also went down in history. A number of films have been made about her, many books have been written in all languages. But the answer to the most important question - whether Diana was ever really happy in her bright, but very difficult and such a short life - will forever remain hidden behind a veil of secrecy...
Princess Diana: biography of her early years
On July 1, 1963, their third daughter was born in the house of Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, rented by them in the royal estate of Sandrigham (Norfolk).
The birth of a girl somewhat disappointed her father, Edward John Spencer, the heir to an ancient earl's family. Two daughters, Sarah and Jane, were already growing up in the family, and the title of nobility could only be passed on to the son. The baby was named Diana Francis - and it was she who was later destined to become her father's favorite. And soon after the birth of Diana, the family was replenished with the long-awaited boy, Charles.
Earl Spencer's wife, Frances Ruth (Roche), also came from a noble Fermoy family; her mother was a lady-in-waiting at the queen's court. The future English princess Diana spent her childhood in Sandrigham. The children of the aristocratic couple were brought up in strict rules, more typical of old England than of the country of the mid-twentieth century: governesses and nannies, strict schedules, walks in the park, riding lessons...
Diana grew up as a kind and open child. However, when she was only six years old, life caused the girl serious mental trauma: her father and mother filed for divorce. Countess Spencer moved to London to live with businessman Peter Shand-Kyd, who left his wife and three children for her. About a year later they got married.
After a lengthy legal battle, the Spencer children remained in the care of their father. He also took the incident very hard, but tried to support the children in every possible way - he occupied himself with singing and dancing, organized holidays, and personally hired tutors and servants. He meticulously selected educational institution for his older daughters and, when the time came, he sent them to primary school Sealfield in King Lees.
At school, Diana was loved for her responsiveness and kind character. She was not the best in her studies, but she made great progress in history and literature, was fond of drawing, dancing, singing, swimming, and was always ready to help her fellow students. Close people noted her tendency to fantasize - obviously, this made it easier for the girl to deal with her experiences. “I will definitely become someone outstanding!” - she liked to repeat.
Meeting Prince Charles
In 1975, the story of Princess Diana moves to new stage. Her father accepts the hereditary title of Earl and moves the family to Northamptonshire, where the Spencer family estate, Althorp House, is located. It was here that Diana first met Prince Charles when he came to these places to hunt. However, they did not make an impression on each other then. Sixteen-year-old Diana found the intelligent Charles with impeccable manners “cute and funny.” The Prince of Wales seemed completely infatuated with Sarah, her older sister. And soon Diana went to continue her studies in Switzerland.
However, she quickly grew tired of the boarding house. Having begged her parents to take her away from there, she returns home at eighteen. Her father gave Diana an apartment in the capital, and the future princess plunged into an independent life. Earning money to support herself, she worked for rich friends, cleaning their apartments and babysitting children, and then got a job as a teacher in kindergarten"Young England".
In 1980, at a picnic at Althorp House, fate again confronted her with the Prince of Wales, and this meeting became fateful. Diana expressed sincere sympathy to Charles in connection with the recent death of his grandfather, Earl Mountbaden. The Prince of Wales was touched; a conversation ensued. All evening after that, Charles did not leave Diana’s side...
They continued to meet, and soon Charles secretly told one of his friends that he seemed to have met the girl he would like to marry. From that time on, the press drew attention to Diana. Photojournalists began a real hunt for her.
Wedding
In February 1981, Prince Charles made an official proposal to Lady Diana, to which she agreed. And almost six months later, in July, the young Countess Diana Spencer was already walking down the aisle with the heir to the British throne in St. Paul's Cathedral.
A married couple of designers - David and Elizabeth Emmanuel - created a masterpiece outfit in which Diana walked to the altar. The princess was dressed in a snow-white dress made from three hundred and fifty meters of silk. About ten thousand pearls, thousands of rhinestones, and tens of meters of gold threads were used to decorate it. To avoid misunderstandings, three copies of the wedding dress were made at once, one of which is now kept in Madame Tussauds.
Twenty-eight cakes were prepared for the festive banquet, which were baked over fourteen weeks.
The newlyweds received many valuable and memorable gifts. Among them were twenty silver dishes presented by the Australian government and silver jewelry from the heir to the throne of Saudi Arabia. A New Zealand representative presented the couple with a luxurious carpet.
Journalists dubbed the wedding of Diana and Charles “the greatest and loudest in the history of the twentieth century.” Seven hundred and fifty million people around the world had the opportunity to watch the magnificent ceremony on television. It was one of the most widely broadcast events in television history.
Princess of Wales: first steps
Almost from the very beginning, married life turned out to be not at all what Diana dreamed of. Princess of Wales - the high-profile title she acquired after her marriage - was cold and prim, like the whole atmosphere in the royal family's house. The crowned mother-in-law, Elizabeth the Second, did not take any steps to ensure that the young daughter-in-law fit into the family more easily.
Open, emotional and sincere, it was very difficult for Diana to accept the external isolation, hypocrisy, flattery and impenetrability of emotions that govern life in Kensington Palace.
Princess Diana's love for music, dancing and fashion was at odds with the way people in the palace used to spend their leisure time. But hunting, horse riding, fishing and shooting - the recognized entertainment of crowned persons - interested her little. In her desire to be closer to ordinary British people, she often violated unspoken rules, prescribing how a member of the royal family should behave.
She was different - people saw it and accepted her with admiration and joy. Diana's popularity among the country's population grew steadily. But in the royal family they often did not understand her - and, most likely, they did not really strive to understand.
Birth of sons
Diana's main passion was her sons. William, the future heir to the British throne, was born on June 21, 1982. Two years later, on September 15, 1984, his younger brother Harry was born.
From the very beginning, Princess Diana tried to do everything to prevent her sons from becoming unhappy hostages of their own origin. She tried in every possible way to ensure that the little princes had as much contact as possible with simple, ordinary life, filled with impressions and joys familiar to all children.
She spent much more time with her sons than the etiquette of the royal house prescribed. On vacation, she allowed them to wear jeans, sweatpants and T-shirts. She took them to the cinemas and to the park, where the princes had fun and ran around, ate hamburgers and popcorn, and stood in line for their favorite rides just like other little Britons.
When the time came for William and Harry to begin their primary education, it was Diana who strongly opposed their being brought up in the closed world of the royal house. The princes began attending preschool classes and then went to a regular British school.
Divorce
The dissimilarity of the characters of Prince Charles and Princess Diana manifested itself from the very beginning of their life together. By the beginning of the 1990s, a final discord occurred between the spouses. A significant role in this was played by the prince’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, which began even before his marriage to Diana.
At the end of 1992, Prime Minister John Major made an official statement in the British Parliament that Diana and Charles were living separately, but had no plans to divorce. However, three and a half years later, their marriage was officially dissolved by a court order.
Diana, Princess of Wales, officially retained her lifelong right to this title, although she ceased to be Her Highness. She continued to live and work at Kensington Palace, remaining mother to the heirs to the throne, and her business schedule was officially included in the official routine of the royal family.
Social activity
After the divorce, Princess Diana devoted almost entirely her time to charity and social activities. Her ideal was Mother Teresa, whom the princess considered her spiritual mentor.
Taking advantage of her enormous popularity, she focused people's attention on truly important issues modern society: AIDS, leukemia, the lives of people with incurable spinal injuries, children with heart defects. On her charity trips she visited almost the whole world.
She was recognized everywhere, greeted warmly, and thousands of letters were written to her, answering which the princess sometimes went to bed long after midnight. Diana's film about anti-personnel mines in the fields of Angola prompted diplomats from many countries to prepare reports for their governments to ban the purchase of these weapons. At the invitation of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, Diana made a report on Angola at the assembly of this organization. And in her native country, many suggested that she become a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.
Trendsetter
For many years, Diana, Princess of Wales, was also considered a style icon in Great Britain. Being a crowned person, she traditionally wore outfits exclusively from British designers, but later significantly expanded the geography of her own wardrobe.
Her style, makeup and hairstyle instantly became popular not only among ordinary British women, but also among designers, as well as movie and pop stars. There are still stories in the press about Princess Diana's outfits and interesting cases associated with them.
So, back in 1985, Diana appeared at the White House at a reception with the presidential couple Reagan in a luxurious dark blue silk velvet dress. It was in it that she danced together with John Travolta.
And the magnificent black evening dress, in which Diana visited the Palace of Versailles in 1994, awarded her the title “Sun Princess”, which sounded from the lips of the famous designer Pierre Cardin.
Diana's hats, handbags, gloves, and accessories have always been evidence of her impeccable taste. The princess sold a significant part of her clothes at auctions, donating the money to charity.
Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana: a love story with a tragic end
Lady Di's personal life was also constantly under the radar of reporters' cameras. Their intrusive attention did not leave such an extraordinary personality as Princess Diana alone for a moment. The love story of her and Dodi Al-Fayed, the son of an Arab millionaire, instantly became the topic of numerous newspaper articles.
By the time they became close in 1997, Diana and Dodi had already known each other for several years. It was Dodi who became the first man with whom the English princess openly went out into the world after her divorce. She visited him at a villa in St. Tropez with his sons, and later met him in London. Some time later, the Al-Fayeds' luxury yacht, Jonicap, set off on a cruise in the Mediterranean. On board were Dodi and Diana.
The princess's last days coincided with the weekend that marked the end of their romantic trip. On August 30, 1997, the couple went to Paris. After dinner at the restaurant of the Ritz Hotel, owned by Dodi, at one o'clock in the morning they got ready to go home. Not wanting to be the center of attention of the paparazzi crowding at the doors of the establishment, Diana and Dodi left the hotel through the service entrance and, accompanied by a bodyguard and driver, hurried away from the hotel...
The details of what happened a few minutes later are still not clear enough. However, in an underground tunnel under Delalma Square, the car had a terrible accident, crashing into one of the supporting columns. The driver and Dodi al-Fayed died on the spot. Diana, unconscious, was taken to the Salpêtrière hospital. Doctors fought for her life for several hours, but could not save the princess.
Funeral
The death of Princess Diana shook the whole world. On the day of her funeral, national mourning was declared and national flags were flown at half-mast throughout the UK. Two huge screens were installed in Hyde Park for those who could not attend the funeral ceremony and memorial service. For young couples who had a wedding scheduled for this date, English insurance companies paid significant amounts of compensation for its cancellation. The square in front of Buckingham Palace was littered with flowers, and thousands of memorial candles burned on the asphalt.
Princess Diana's funeral took place at Althorp House, the family estate of the Spencer family. Lady Di found her last refuge in the middle of a small secluded island on the lake, which she loved to visit during her lifetime. By personal order of Prince Charles, Princess Diana's coffin was covered with the royal standard - an honor reserved exclusively for members of the royal family...
Investigation and causes of death
Court hearings to establish the circumstances of Princess Diana's death took place in 2004. They were then temporarily postponed while an investigation into the circumstances of the car accident in Paris was carried out and resumed three years later at the Royal Court in London. The jury heard testimony from more than two hundred and fifty witnesses from eight countries.
Following the hearings, the court came to the conclusion that the cause of death of Diana, her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul was the illegal actions of the paparazzi chasing their car and driving vehicle Drunk field.
These days, there are several versions of why Princess Diana actually died. However, none of them have been proven.
Real, kind, alive, generously giving people the warmth of her soul - that’s how she was, Princess Diana. The biography and life path of this extraordinary woman still remains a subject of undying interest to millions of people. In the memory of descendants, she is destined to forever remain the Queen of Hearts, not only in her native country, but throughout the world...
The phenomenon of her enormous popularity is still amazing, and the feeling of respect and love that she evoked in souls ordinary people still causes envy not only among royalty, but also among any high-level politician. Diana was born on July 1, 1961 into the family of the ancient and famous English family of the Spencer-Churchills, closely associated with the royal house. Despite such high origins, she received a very mediocre education; as a child, she was raised at home with a governess, and later attended a private school. At the age of 12, Diana was accepted into a privileged girls' school in West Hill, Kent. But she turned out to be a bad student and was unable to complete her studies there. In 1977, the future princess briefly attended school in the Swiss city of Rougemont. But even in Switzerland she quickly got bored and Diana returned to England ahead of schedule. In 1975, Diana's father inherited the title of the next Earl Spencer, and the girl received the courtesy title "Lady", which is reserved for the daughters of high peers. Diana met her future husband, Prince Charles, in the winter of 1977, when he came hunting to the Spencers' ancient ancestral castle of Althorp House in Notthrogtonshire.
Since 1978 princess Diana lives in London, first in his mother's apartment, and after his eighteenth birthday in his own apartment in Earls Court. At this time she works at the Young England kindergarten in Pimilico as an assistant teacher. On July 29, 1981, the magnificent wedding of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles took place.
Sons were soon born - the first-born William in 1982 and Harry in 1984 - the Princes of Wales. Those who knew closely Diana people say that she loved to read books about beautiful love stories and was fond of the novels of Barbara Cartland. She dreamed that her life would be the same wonderful fairy tale about the Princess. But fate decreed otherwise.
Princess Diana is the opposite of royalty
From the very beginning princess Diana For a long time she could not fit into the customs of the royal house; she was uncomfortable in the Balmoral residence, which was surrounded by gloomy English swamps and drafts walked through the ancient castle. The princess did not like traditional royal entertainment, such as polo and hunting. In turn, the royal family was dissatisfied with the behavior of the princess, who undermined his authority, which had been created over the centuries. After all, Diana tried to create, and she succeeded, a very special image of the “people’s” princess, which was completely devoid of the traditional coldness, restraint and even stiffness characteristic of the court of Queen Elizabeth. Diana was accused of being too eager to flaunt her charity work, a traditional activity of all women in royal families. But those who were constantly nearby noted her amazing ability to empathize, which determined her desire for charity, and not at all the desire to appear in the lenses of television cameras.
So in the late eighties, during one of the events, she, without doubting for a second, shook the hand of a homosexual with AIDS, thereby shocking those accompanying her. Not a shadow of disgust could be read on her face when, during a visit to orphanages in Africa, she took sick children in her arms, the sight of which brought tears to even the seasoned journalists present. The children called Diana "angel". But the fairy-tale princess, as she seemed to millions of people, was actually not very happy.
By the early 1990s, the relationship between Charles and Diana had become very difficult. Charles, having entered into marriage, was never able to break off relations with his long-time love, Camilla Parker Bowles, who would become his second wife after Diana’s death. In 1992, the couple separated and began to live separately, and in 1996, at the insistence of Queen Elizabeth II, the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana ended in divorce. After the divorce, Diana tried to improve her personal happiness. One of the paparazzi in the summer of 1997 managed to catch Diana in the arms of her new lover. It turned out to be Dodi al-Fayed, the son of an Egyptian billionaire. Dodi himself was a successful producer of Hollywood films and was a more than wealthy man. The lovers did not hide their clearly serious feelings, and in August a rumor spread about the imminent wedding of Diana and the Muslim womanizer.
Princess Diana and Al Fayed
Such a connection with Diana shocked the British high society and finally quarreled with the royal family. In London clubs they whispered that the only thing that could have happened worse was if Diana had decided to marry a black man. Since the end of July 1997, Diana has been vacationing on the Jonikal yacht, owned by the Fayeds. Then they went to Monaco... Diana already wanted to return to London, but then Dodi Al-Fayed persuaded her to accompany him on an urgent one-day trip to Paris, where the lovers arrived late in the evening. Diana and Dodi headed to the Ritz Hotel, where Al-Fayed had ordered dinner. Later, driving through the Alma tunnel, a car containing four people: the driver, a security guard and Princess Diana along with Al-Fayed, crashed into a support. The lovers died in this terrible car accident. For many years now, the father of the late Dodi al-Fayed has been trying to solve the mystery of the death of his son and Diana and find new explanations for those terrible events.
Versions of the tragedy
According to the very first version of the investigation, the accident was provoked by the persistent pursuit of the car by several scooters, on which were the ubiquitous reporters who followed the celebrities back at the hotel. It was assumed that one of them could have prevented the Mercedes from moving and, while avoiding a collision, the car crashed into a concrete bridge support. But eyewitness testimony refuted this version - the scooters entered the tunnel later than the Mercedes and could not have provoked a collision.
Version two - the accident involved a car, which by that time was already in the tunnel. This version was supported by fragments of a Fiat Uno taillight found by the police in the immediate vicinity of the crashed Mercedes and eyewitness accounts of a white Fiat allegedly zigzagging out of the tunnel. But the investigation was never able to find either the car or the driver, despite the fact that its make, color and year of manufacture were precisely determined. And later, the witnesses began to get confused in their testimony - whether the car was there and in what period of time - before the accident or after...
The third version - the participation of British intelligence services - is suggested by some mysterious circumstances of the incident. According to eyewitnesses, as soon as a black Mercedes entered the tunnel, suddenly the twilight was cut by an unusually bright flash of light, which for several seconds absolutely blinded everyone who observed it. And a moment after the flash, there was a squeal of brakes and the sound of an impact. The witness who provided this testimony, a certain François Laviste, for some reason was subsequently recognized by the police as unreliable. A few months later, a sensational statement by former British intelligence agent Richard Thomplison appeared in the British and French media that the circumstances of the death Princess Diana remind him of the plan to assassinate Slobodan Milosevic, which was developed by the British intelligence services, and according to which it was supposed to blind the Yugoslav president in a similar tunnel with a powerful flash. Perhaps, according to the former agent, the latest laser weapons in service with the intelligence services were also used in the Alma tunnel.
The press also saw the trace of the British intelligence services in the version about the mysterious Fiat. If the car was not at the scene of the accident, but the fragments were found, then someone planted them at the scene of the accident, trying to imagine the situation as a banal accident. It was the white Fiat that was used by one of the famous and successful paparazzi of Paris, James Andanson. Interested parties could confidently assume that that evening the reporter would not miss the opportunity to make money from photographs of the celebrity couple that everyone was interested in and would definitely end up somewhere nearby... But chance intervened - the reporter was indeed in the tunnel with his colleagues, but that night he found himself without his car . Someone’s well-developed version about journalist Andanson’s guilt in the accident has lost its main core. But on the other hand, it is also impossible to say that Andanson had nothing to do with the accident.
Firstly, there is information that al-Fayed’s security service had evidence that Adanson was an agent of the British intelligence services. Secondly, there is a whole list of questions about it. Question one: why did the photographer, who spent several hours at the Ritz Hotel for the sake of a sensational photograph, suddenly, without waiting for the star couple, left his post and went straight to the tunnel, where he was one of the first at the wrecked car. Question two: why, after the accident, Andanson, without even waiting for the outcome, suddenly disappears and immediately at 4 o’clock in the morning flies from Paris on the next flight to Corsica. Some time later, his body was found in a burnt-out car in the French Pyrenees. While the police were identifying him, unknown persons stole all the materials related to the death of Diana and her friend from his Paris office. This may, of course, be a fatal coincidence, but it is much more likely that Andanson was eliminated either as an unwanted witness or as a perpetrator of the murder.
In September 1999, another reporter died in a Paris hospital, who was next to the mangled Mercedes on that fateful night. Princess Diana. Reporter James Keith was scheduled to undergo minor knee surgery and planned to publish his investigation into the Alma Tunnel accident after being released from hospital. During the operation, the journalist died and a few hours after his death, the Internet web page with the details of the investigations and all materials were destroyed.
And one more secret. The very first action in case of an accident is to remove recordings from road surveillance cameras and look at the details of what happened, and then attach them to the case. The police called road service workers to the scene of the accident, they opened the boxes where the cameras were installed, but (!!!) the video surveillance system, which worked properly in all other points of Paris, by a mysterious coincidence, failed in the Alma tunnel. One can only guess what or who was the cause of this oddity.
Almost two years after the tragic accident on July 5, 1999, the media around the world are publishing sensational news - the investigation places all the blame for the incident on the driver of the Mercedes, Henri Paul. He headed the security service of the Ritz Hotel, and on that fateful evening he found himself as the driver behind the wheel of a crashed car. Al-Fayed's car, according to the investigation, turned out to be faulty and Dodi's personal bodyguard and driver Ken Wingfield remained at the hotel, and Henri Paul offered his services. Although eight years after the accident, Ken Wingfield insisted that his car was in perfect order. So - Henri Paul was driving and the examination and investigation assure that he was very drunk that night, this is the presence of alcohol - 1.78 ppm in the blood, which is equivalent to drinking 10 glasses of wine. In addition, it turns out that he had been taking antidepressants for a long time. But the surveillance cameras in the hotel show an absolutely adequate Henri Paul, and the journalists on duty at the Ritz also do not indicate that the driver was drunk. There is also a video recording of Henri Paul talking to Al-Fayed and Diana at close range. People who know Dodi and his pickiness assure that Al-Fayed would never get into a car with a drunk driver.
For a long time, the investigation assured that there could be no error in the blood tests carried out, that this was indeed the blood of Henri Paul. But the film crew of the Russian channel REN TV conducted their own investigation. And they managed to prove that the blood, the analysis of which was announced in the media and in which traces of alcohol and carbon monoxide were found, did not belong to Princess Diana’s driver. The group managed to talk to Jacques Mules, who was then the head of the detective police brigade, and he admitted that that day, due to extreme fatigue (he worked for two days in a row), he actually mixed up the test tube numbers, giving away a test tube with the blood of a completely different person under the name of Henri Paul.
Another thing that speaks in favor of the absurdity of Henri Paul’s drunkenness during the accident is that he was engaged in a flying club - he piloted light aircraft. Just before the tragic accident, he underwent a strict medical examination to renew his flying license. A day before the disaster, the doctor examined him and took blood tests; nothing showed any traces of hidden alcoholism or traces of any medications. Yes, it is unlikely that Henri Paul was drunk that night, but is this evidence of his absolute innocence in what happened? After his death, a huge amount of money was discovered in his bank account - about 1.2 million francs, which, in theory, he could not have earned. Special services historian Boris Gromov admits the possibility of Henri Paul's involvement in MI6 intelligence. High level The Ritz hotel allows high-ranking government officials from various countries to visit it. And the post of head of the security service is extremely interesting for any intelligence service...
There is something else. After the accident, ambulances arrived at the scene. The driver and al-Faed were already dead, but Diana's guard Trevor Rhys-Jones, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, and Diana herself were still alive. The guard was immediately taken to the hospital, which ultimately saved his life, and Princess Diana for some reason they tried to revive standing car ambulance Experts claim that the princess died due to late delivery to the hospital. Who made the decision to work on site and not go to the hospital? What is this, a mistake? Or the nerves of doctors, who, as you know, are also people?
After Diana's death was confirmed, the decision was made to send the body on a special flight to London. The flight between Paris and London lasts no more than an hour, but doctors at a British clinic were shocked when they received the already embalmed body of the princess. It turns out that while the special plane, without turning off the engines, was waiting for the body for urgent transportation, a hasty embalming took place in Paris! Michael Cowel, Al-Fayed's official spokesman: "In violation of French law, this was carried out on behalf of the British Embassy, which, in turn, admits that it received instructions from a certain person." The name of the person who gave such a monstrous order to carry out embalming could not be established. We say monstrous things because the drugs used during embalming do not allow subsequent repeated necessary examinations of the corpse and make the investigation very difficult. And the elder Al-Faed, Dodi’s father, has his own version of why this was done - he is convinced that the English princess was pregnant with his son and embalming helped hide this sensational fact to interested people.
We cannot say that death Princess Diana and her friend was planned by someone, it may well be that His Majesty Chance so confused the threads of this incident that it began to look almost like a conspiracy. Only one person survived the tragic accident - Diana's guard Trevor Rhys-Jones, but he cannot say anything about what happened in the tunnel. Rhys-Jones has lost his memory and cannot shed any light on the events of that night. We can only hope that one day Rhys-Jones will be cured and have time to say everything he remembers. The official investigation has ended. Its results assure the public that the incident was a chain of random events that led to an accident, and was by no means a conspiracy.
