Diana, 10th Anniversary: Ten years on, conspiracy theories fail to go away
THE conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, refuse to go away.
The exhaustive Metropolitan Police investigation concluded it was a tragic accident, but some still maintain this was a case of murder.
Was it any surprise that the sudden loss of the People’s Princess would generate conspiracy theories to rival those surrounding the deaths of JFK and Marilyn Monroe?
Soon after the fateful events in Paris, speculation mounted that Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed were victims of an assassination.
Numerous culprits were blamed, from the Duke of Edinburgh to Israeli agents, amid an ever-growing mass of rumours.
Dodi’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, spearheaded the drive for the theories to be taken seriously.
There have been claims Diana was pregnant, planning to marry her lover and that she herself feared she would be killed.
Many theories centred on speculation that the blood samples belonging to chauffeur Henri Paul were tampered with or switched, and there were even suggestions that the Prince of Wales might have had played a part in the demise of his ex-wife.
Then there was the contemplation of the reports of a strange “flash before the crash” and the mysterious white car — a Fiat Uno — which has never been traced.
In 1999, a two-year investigation in France concluded that the crash was an accident caused by Paul, who was also killed, driving too fast while under the influence of a cocktail of drink and drugs.
Manslaughter charges against paparazzi photographers who were following Diana’s car were dropped.
Despite the official ruling, thousands of internet sites continued to scrutinise what took place in the Alma tunnel in the early hours of August 31, 1997.
Mr al Fayed relentlessly pursued legal action in a bid to seek what he viewed as justice for his son and the princess.
According to the Harrods boss, Diana was pregnant with Dodi’s child and was killed by British agents to prevent her embarrassing the Royal Family.
He has accused MI6 and the establishment, focusing much of his anger at Diana’s former father-in-law, Prince Philip.
Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell reawakened the theories when it emerged he had a letter from her expressing her fears that her brakes might be tampered with on the orders of the Prince of Wales.
She wrote: “This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous — my husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry.”
The letter was handed to the inquiry as evidence and Charles was later contacted as part of the investigation by former Metropolitan Police commissioner John Stevens.
Among the many claims that have surfaced are that Paul was actually an informer for the British intelligence service and that he had large amounts of money which came from MI6 in a number of bank accounts.
Former spy Richard Tomlinson argued that Diana’s death bore similarities to an MI6 plan drawn up to kill Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and make it look like a car accident.
The high levels of carbon monoxide found in Paul’s blood also aroused suspicion, with experts saying it would have made him incapable of driving.
This has led to a suggestion that there was an attempt to make Paul the patsy in a plot to kill Diana.
The conspirators argue that his blood samples could have been switched at the morgue to show that he was drunk, allowing the “murder” to be blamed on him.
But another version is that his samples were inadvertently mixed up with another body at the morgue.
Other questions centre on why it took so long to ferry Diana by ambulance to the hospital, and where Paul was heading when he left the Ritz hotel with Diana and Dodi.
He was apparently not driving a logical route to Dodi’s apartment. According to the conspiracy theorists, had he gone the wrong way he could have turned off before the tunnel.
It is suggested he could have been told to head that way by MI6 handlers and that the sliproad may have been blocked off by a motorcyclist forcing him into the tunnel.
Chasing photographers described seeing a flash of light in the tunnel, which theorists have surmised was directed into Paul’s eyes from an undercover agent in another car.
In 2000, there was a new twist with the death of French cameraman James Andanson, who had been trailing Diana and Dodi in St Tropez in the days before the crash.
Andanson drove a white Fiat Uno, which he sold in the days after the crash, although he claimed not to have been in the tunnel at the time and produced a petrol receipt as proof.
Three years after the crash his remains were found in a burnt-out car in the south of France and there was immediate speculation that he had been murdered, that he was linked to the French security services and could have been about to go public with further details of the events of that night. French police said Andanson committed suicide, a suggestion his family rejected.
Other cover-up theories surrounded the decision to embalm Diana’s body in France.
It was argued the use of formaldehyde would subsequently have made it impossible to tell if she was pregnant.
Former royal coroner John Burton, who was present when Diana’s body was examined, insisted she was not.
There are also tales of photography agencies in Paris and London being raided and photos of the crash scene going missing; suspicion about the CCTV cameras inside the tunnel which were said to have been turned inwards to face the wall and claims Diana could have been saved if she had reached hospital more quickly.
Conspiracy theorists seized on the failure of French police to preserve forensics at the crash scene which was sprayed clean soon afterwards.
Others looked into the possibility that Diana was killed by undercover agents from Israel.
It was alleged that Mossad agents working with a French intelligence officer in the white Fiat killed her because they did not want her to marry a Muslim and adopt the Palestinian cause.
