Death of Diana, Princess of Wales, conspiracy theories

Richard Tomlinson, a former MI6 officer who was dismissed from the intelligence services and later served five months in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act 1989,[28] claimed in a sworn statement to the French inquiry in May 1999 that Britain's MI6 had been involved in the crash, suggesting that the security service had documentation which would assist Judge Stephan in his inquiry.[29] The previous August, he had been reported by the BBC to have claimed that Paul was working for the security services and that one of Diana's bodyguards, either Trevor Rees-Jones (now known as Trevor Rees) or Kes Wingfield, was a contact for British intelligence.[30] Tomlinson alleged that MI6 was monitoring Diana before her death, had told Mohamed Al-Fayed that Paul was an MI6 agent,[31] and that her death mirrored plans he saw in 1992 for the assassination of then President of Serbia Slobodan Milošević, using a strobe light to blind his chauffeur.[32]

On 13 February 2008, Tomlinson told the inquest that he may have misremembered and that he had no evidence that Paul was an MI6 agent,[31] but he had said in the previous day's court session that Paul was supplying MI6 with information.[32] Speaking by video-link from France, Tomlinson conceded that, after the interval of 16 or 17 years, he "could not remember specifically" whether the document he had seen during 1992 had in fact proposed the use of a strobe light to cause a traffic crash as a means of assassinating Milošević, although use of lights for this purpose had been covered in his MI6 training.[31] The Operation Paget Inquiry was given unprecedented access to the offices of both MI5 and MI6 to investigate Tomlinson's claims. It was later revealed that the mentioned memo was a proposal written in March 1993 to assassinate another Serbian figure if he gained power, not Milošević.[33][34][35] Furthermore, the plan did not involve anything about using flashlights.[36]

Further evidence discrediting Tomlinson's claims was found in drafts of a book he was writing about his time in MI6 before he was jailed in 1998 for breaching the Official Secrets Act. The draft, dating from 1996, referred to the memo and contained none of the detail about a staged car crash with flashlights in a tunnel.[36]

The inquest was later told by an anonymous MI6 manager (referred to during proceedings as "Miss X") that MI6 were not keeping any file on either the Princess or Dodi, and that there was no plan involving them.[37] The inquiry concluded by dismissing Tomlinson's claims as an embellishment. It went on to comment that this embellishment was largely responsible for giving rise to the theories Diana was murdered.[38]

Tomlinson was arrested by French authorities in July 2006 as part of their inquiry into the death of Diana.[39] French police were also reported to have seized computer files and personal papers from his home in Cannes.

One of the main motives which has been advanced for alleged murder includes suggestions Diana was pregnant with Mohamed "Dodi" Fayed's child and the couple were about to get engaged. The alleged dislike of the idea of a non-Christian within the British Royal Family meant such a relationship between the mother of the future king and a prominent Egyptian Muslim would not be tolerated.[40] In Mohamed Al-Fayed's view, which he repeated in court at the inquest in February 2008, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales, Diana's sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale and numerous others were all involved in a plot to kill the Princess and his son.[41] Jeffrey Steinberg of the Executive Intelligence Review, a publication of the American Lyndon LaRouche movement, has also put forward theories that the Princess of Wales was murdered by the security services under the instructions of Prince Philip.[42] An article in The Daily Telegraph in 1998 reporting the EIR conspiracy theories alleged earlier links between the EIR and Al-Fayed,[43] while Francis Wheen reported the following year that Al-Fayed's spokesman had advised journalists to contact Steinberg.[44]

Al-Fayed made the assertion in television interviews that the couple were going to announce their engagement on the Monday after the crash, 1 September 1997. Operation Paget commented that an announcement of such magnitude from the Princess of Wales would have been a substantial media event of worldwide interest and would have required significant preparation. No evidence was found that any such preparation had been made.[45]

CCTV evidence shown at the inquest indicates that Dodi left Alberto Repossi jewellers on the 30 August with nothing more than a catalogue.[46] Repossi said in 2003 that the ring had been placed on Diana's finger in a St Tropez hotel, and was being resized for future collection in Paris, but later admitted to writer Martyn Gregory that he had received "legal papers" from Al-Fayed, a client for more than 20 years.[3] Al-Fayed said the couple chose the ring in Monte Carlo, and Dodi had picked it up in Paris the day before he died after it had been altered.[46] This statement of Al-Fayed was contradicted by the statements of Claude Roulet, a shop assistant, and the CCTV footage.[47] A CCTV recording demonstrated that a ring had been selected by a Ritz hotel official. It was bought by Mohammed Al-Fayed after the couple's death.[3]

A few hours before the crash, on the afternoon of 30 August, Diana's journalist friend Richard Kay received a call on his mobile phone from Diana in which she asked about what was likely to appear in the following day's Sunday papers about her.[48] During this call, she made no mention of any announcement she intended to make.[49]

More revealing was the statement given by Diana's eldest sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale, who testified that in a phone conversation with Diana on Friday 29 August, Diana spoke about Dodi Fayed in a manner that gave her sister the impression the relationship was on "stony ground".[50] Statements from other friends and confidantes Diana spoke to in the week before her death, including her butler Paul Burrell, her friend Lady Annabel Goldsmith, and her spiritual adviser Rita Rogers, were unanimous that she was firm about not wanting to get engaged or married to anyone at that point in her life. A week before she died, the princess had told Goldsmith: "I need marriage like a rash on my face."[51]

Diana's former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, said to the BBC in reaction to the publication of the Operation Paget Report in December 2006 that her facial expression in the CCTV footage of her at the Paris Ritz on her final evening with Dodi Fayed was one she would wear when she was disgruntled with a situation.[52] However, CCTV images released on 6 October taken just minutes before their deaths, show a relaxed Diana and Dodi affectionately holding hands.[53]

An inquiry witness was Hasnat Khan, a Muslim heart surgeon of Pakistani origin based in London, who had a relationship with Diana for two years. Diana had explored the possibility of marriage with him. This had been met with no opposition from the Royal Family and Prince Charles had given his blessing.[51] Khan stated that he had received some racist hate mail from members of the public because of the relationship but had no reason to take what was said in this hate mail seriously. He also stated that he felt the relationship was not opposed by the Royal Family or any other branch of the British Government including the security services. Paul Burrell stated that Diana was still not over her break-up with Khan at the time of her death.[54] It was also pointed out that Dodi and Diana had only met just under seven weeks before the crash, at Al-Fayed's villa in St. Tropez on 14 July, meaning there were only 47 days from their first meeting until the night of the crash. Of those days, their schedules permitted them to be together for an absolute maximum of 35 days. From analysis of Diana's actual movements, it is likely they had spent approximately 23 days together before the crash.[55]

John Macnamara, a former senior detective at Scotland Yard, headed Al-Fayed's own investigation for five years from 1997. Cross-examined at the inquest on 14 February, he conceded that he had found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy to kill the Princess, or that she was engaged or pregnant at the time of her death, apart from the claims Al-Fayed had relayed to him.[56]

In January 2004, the former coroner of the Queen's Household, Dr. John Burton, said (in an interview with The Times) that he attended a post-mortem examination of the Princess's body at Fulham mortuary, where he personally examined her womb and found her not to be pregnant.[50][57]

In an effort to examine the assertions made by Al-Fayed, Operation Paget had scientific tests carried out on pre-transfusion blood found in the footwell of the seat in the wrecked Mercedes the Princess of Wales occupied at the time of the crash. This blood was found to have no trace of the hCG hormone associated with pregnancy.[58] The inquiry also extensively interviewed friends of Diana's who were in close contact with her in the weeks leading up to her death. The evidence obtained from these witnesses was of a very sensitive nature and most of it was not included in Operation Paget's criminal investigation report. However, it was reported that friends said she was in her normal menstrual cycle and there was evidence she was using contraception.[59]

Al-Fayed's persistence in asserting Diana was pregnant led him to get members of his staff to tell the media that on their final day together, Diana and his son had visited a villa he owned in Paris to choose a room "for the baby". While the couple had indeed visited the villa, the circumstances of the visit were exaggerated to say it had lasted two hours and that it was in the presence of a prominent Italian interior designer. A security guard at the villa, Reuben Murrell, felt uncomfortable lying about the matter and sold his story to The Sun stating that the visit lasted just under thirty minutes and was not in the company of any interior designer. He provided stills from CCTV to prove this and said he had been in the presence of Diana and Dodi for the entirety of their visit, with there having been no conversation about them coming to live at the villa. He later resigned from Al-Fayed's employment and initiated an employment tribunal for constructive dismissal after Al-Fayed successfully sued him for breach of contract because of the CCTV images he supplied to The Sun.[60][61][62] Senior members of Al-Fayed's staff made derogatory comments about Murrell and Trevor Rees-Jones in their statements to Operation Paget.[63] In 2004, a Channel 4 documentary, The Diana Conspiracy, claimed that the butler at the villa who, in a June 1998 interview with the ITV documentary Diana: Secrets Behind the Crash, claimed to have shown the couple around with their intent being to live there, was not even present at the villa on that day as he was on vacation.[64]

Al-Fayed first claimed that the Princess of Wales was pregnant at the time of her death to the Daily Express in May 2001. "If it is true, it is strange that he sat upon this important information for three and a half years," Scott Baker said at the inquest.[51]

The absence of CCTV images showing the Mercedes's journey from the hotel to the crash site has been frequently cited as evidence of an organised conspiracy. According to The Independent newspaper in 2006, there were more than 14 CCTV cameras in the Pont de l'Alma underpass, though none recorded footage of the fatal collision.[65]

Judge Hervé Stéphan was appointed as Examining Magistrate in this case on 2 September 1997. On that day, by Judicial Order, he tasked the Brigade Criminelle with identifying all video and photographic images along the route taken by the Mercedes. Lieutenant Eric Gigou of the Brigade Criminelle led the team that carried out that work, initially by retracing the route several times and drawing up a list of possible locations. His report showed that the team identified ten locations of CCTV cameras. None of these had any images relevant to the inquiry, since they were principally security cameras facing the entrances to buildings. Most of the cameras were not maintained by the City of Paris; the owners of the buildings to which they were attached operated them privately. There was a traffic-monitoring camera above the underpass in the Place de l'Alma itself but this was under the control of la Compagnie de Circulation Urbaine de Paris (Paris Urban Traffic Unit). That department closed down at about 11 p.m., had no night duty staff and made no recordings. Officers in the Police Headquarters Information and Command Centre could continue to view the pictures shown by the traffic camera in real time but could not control it.

The subject of the CCTV cameras is dealt with in Chapter 5 of the Operation Paget report. It was also found that a photograph that was published in a book by David Cohen Diana, Death of a Goddess and captioned as having been taken just before the car entered the tunnel was in fact taken by a photographer as the car left the back of the Paris Ritz.[66]

Analysis of the wreckage of the Mercedes revealed it had glancing contact with a white Fiat Uno car which left traces of paint on the Mercedes bodywork. Extensive attempts by the French police to find the vehicle involved were unsuccessful.[67] Although no one had seen the Fiat in the tunnel, some witnesses reported seeing an Uno exiting the tunnel.[68]

Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged in his July 2005 statement to Operation Paget, and at other times, that the white Fiat Uno was being used by MI6[69] as a means of causing the Mercedes to swerve and thereby crash into the side of the tunnel. Al-Fayed further alleged that the Fiat Uno was owned by a French photojournalist named Jean-Paul James Andanson,[70] a security services agent according to Fayed,[25] who had photographed Diana while she was at his villa in St. Tropez in July 1997. Andanson's death in May 2000, Al-Fayed claimed, was either due to guilt over what he had done or because he was assassinated by the French or British security services to silence him.[49]

Operation Paget found that the white Fiat Uno Andanson owned was in an unroadworthy condition, being nine years old at the time, with 325,000 km on the odometer[71] (suggesting that the car had been driven 27,000 miles per annum) and had not been maintained for several years prior. Andanson's neighbours confirmed the veracity of this evidence.[71] Andanson had sold the car in October 1997.[70] Operation Paget concluded it was extremely unlikely due to the car's condition and the fact Andanson had so openly disposed of it that it was the one at the scene of the crash in Paris. French police had examined Andanson's car as part of their effort to trace the one that had come into contact with the Mercedes with a view to prosecuting the driver for failing to render assistance and had reached the same conclusion. The French police spent a year after the crash searching for the vehicle and eliminated over 4,000 white Fiat Unos from their inquiry. Operation Paget decided it would be unlikely renewed enquiries would identify the vehicle involved as such a long period had elapsed since the crash. It concluded the threat of prosecution for a custodial offence probably deterred the driver from coming forward at the time.[72]

A retired major in the French Brigade Criminelle, Jean Claude Mules, gave evidence to the inquest in February 2008. Andanson had been interviewed by French police in February 1998, and had been able to provide documentary evidence about his movements on the previous 30 and 31 August which had satisfied them that he could not have been the driver of the Fiat Uno involved. These demonstrated that Andanson could only have been at his home in Lignieres, 177 miles from Paris, at the time of the crash.[70] Elizabeth, his widow, said at the London inquest in February 2008 that her husband had been at home in bed with her at the time of the crash.[73]

An alternative explanation for the cause of the crash has been reports of a bright white flash just before the car entered the tunnel, blinding the driver. Richard Tomlinson made this allegation at the inquiry, but the veracity of his evidence was found wanting.

It was found by the authorities that three eyewitnesses at the scene of the crash claimed to see a bright flash of light before the crash.[82] François Levistre (originally François Levi)[83] made a clear, specific claim that he saw a bright flash, but his three statements to the authorities were in conflict with each other.[84] Both the French detectives investigating after the crash[85] and later the officers who worked on Operation Paget rejected his evidence.[86] With the Mercedes behind him, he claimed to have seen the flash in his rear-view mirror and recounted other elements of what he saw while he was negotiating the difficult bend out of the tunnel.[87] Crucially, however, his testimony was directly contradicted by his then-wife, who was in the passenger seat next to him.[86] However, eyewitness Brian Anderson, an American tourist, told detectives that he too saw a bright flash.[88]

French Police in 1997 were aware of Levistre's conviction in Rouen during 1989 for dishonesty and his subsequent prison sentence,[85] and he was not thought by them to be a reliable witness.[89] Television documentaries produced by Channel 4 in 2004 and the BBC in 2006 both raised this issue;[89] he appeared as a witness at the British inquiry via a video link in October 2007. Diana: Secrets Behind the Crash (3 June 1998), an ITV programme presented by Nicholas Owen, then ITN's Royal Correspondent, gave enough weight to the claims of Levistre that 93% of viewers polled by the Mirror newspaper just after the broadcast believed there had been a bright flash of light at the time of the crash.[83]

The detail of eyewitness testimony was thoroughly reviewed and Operation Paget officers succeeded in uncovering two new witnesses. Other eyewitness testimony made little reference to the appearance of any inexplicable flashes at the crash site. Several witnesses who would be expected to have seen a blinding flash made no reference to one. In any event, the detailed crash reconstruction revealed that the chain of events that led to the car unavoidably colliding with the pillar started well before it was at the mouth of the tunnel where the flash is alleged to have occurred. Furthermore, a strobe light of the type that was alleged to have been used is so powerful that a flash emitted from it would have been bright enough to illuminate a very wide area. It would have likely blinded not only Paul, but also the driver of the white Fiat Uno, the pursuing paparazzi and witnesses standing at the road side. The Operation Paget report concluded that the alleged flash did not happen.[90]

There was some media discussion in April 2006 suggesting that Diana was a faithful seat belt user and therefore the fact that both her and Dodi's seat belts either failed or were not used was sinister and might suggest sabotage.[91] Her sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale later said that Diana "was religious in putting on her seat belt".[92] Other sources question if she did in fact use her seat belt all the time, as was suggested.[91]

"What is certain is that she was not wearing a seat belt and this made things worse. We would like to think that if she had been wearing a seat belt, we'd have been able to save her," said Prof. André Lienhart, who reviewed the emergency services' response for the French government investigation of the incident.[93] CNN did an analysis of the crash in early September 1997 and concluded that injuries would have been minor had the occupants been wearing seat belts. The conclusions were provisional owing to limited data about the specific Mercedes model as the limousine was not sold in the US.[94]

Analysis of the wreckage of the car after its repatriation to England in 2005 by a Forensic Accident Investigator from the Transport Research Laboratory of thirty-five years experience on behalf of Operation Paget found that all the seat belts were in good working order except for the right rear one which was attached to the seat Diana occupied. Follow up enquiries with French investigators found that they had declared all the seat belts operational at an examination in October 1998, suggesting the damage to this seat belt took place after the crash.[95]

The British inquest verdict explicitly stated that lack of seat belts had "caused or contributed to" the deaths of both Dodi and Diana.[96]

The first call to the emergency services' switchboard was logged at 12.26 a.m. The SAMU ambulance carrying the Princess arrived at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital at 2.06 a.m. This length of time has prompted much conspiracy-related comment.

The period between the crash and the arrival at the hospital takes into account the following: the time taken for emergency services to arrive; the time taken by the Sapeurs-Pompiers (fire service) of Paris to remove Diana from the damaged car; and the actual journey time from the crash site to the hospital. Police Officers Sébastien Dorzee and Lino Gagliadorne were the first emergency officials to arrive at the scene at around 12:30 a.m. Sergeants Xavier Gourmelom and Philippe Boyer of the Sapeurs-Pompiers arrived at around 12:32 a.m. Doctor Jean-Marc Martino, a specialist in anaesthetics and intensive care treatment and the doctor in charge of the SAMU ambulance, arrived at around 12:40 a.m. Diana was removed from the car at 1:00 a.m. She then went into cardiac arrest. Following external cardiopulmonary resuscitation, her heart started beating again. She was moved to the SAMU ambulance at 1:18 a.m.[97]

The ambulance departed the crash scene at 1:41 a.m. and arrived at the hospital at 2:06 a.m.—a journey time of approximately 26 minutes. This included a stop at the Gare d'Austerlitz ordered by Dr Martino because of the drop in the blood pressure of the Princess of Wales and the necessity to deal with it. The ambulance was travelling slowly on his express instructions. The doctor was concerned about Diana's blood pressure and the effects on her medical condition of deceleration and acceleration.[98]

The SAMU ambulance carrying Diana passed the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital on the Ile de la Cité en route to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. The decision to transfer her to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital was taken by Dr Marc Lejay who was on despatch duty in SAMU Control on that night, in consultation with Dr Derossi, who was at the scene. The Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital was the main reception centre for multiple trauma patients in Paris. The Hôtel-Dieu was not equipped to deal with the injuries Diana had sustained. Lejay stated: ‘The Hôtel-Dieu hospital on the ‘Ile de la Cité’ is closer but not equipped with heart surgery teams or neurosurgical teams or teams trained to take patients with multiple injuries.’ Lejay was also aware that Professor Bruno Riou was on duty at the Pitié-Salpêtrière that night and was particularly skilled to treat her injuries. Dr Jean-Marc Martino supported this view.[99]

Mohamed Al-Fayed alleged that Diana's body was deliberately embalmed shortly after her death to ensure that any pregnancy test at the post-mortem would produce a false result.

Operation Paget found that 31 August 1997 was a very hot day in Paris. Diana's body had been stored in an empty room adjacent to the emergency room where she had been treated at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, as the mortuary was on the other side of the hospital grounds and some distance away. Dry ice and air conditioning units were placed in the room to keep it cool but appeared to have had little success.[100]

Diana's two sisters and Prince Charles were scheduled to view the body later that afternoon before bringing it back to the United Kingdom. President Jacques Chirac and his wife also wished to pay their respects. This meant there was very little time to prepare the body for viewing, and it was clearly unacceptable to present Diana's body to her family and the President of France in the state it was in. Faced with this situation, the hospital staff decided to press ahead with embalming with only verbal authority from Madame Martine Monteil, the local superintendent of police, who assured Jean Monceau "that everything would be in order". Under French law, paperwork must be completed before undertaking the embalming of any corpse likely to be subject to a post-mortem. This paperwork was completed, but only after the embalming had been carried out, giving rise to allegations of suspicious circumstances. The allegations were made despite there being no way the hospital staff could have known whether or not Diana was pregnant, as a pregnancy test would have been irrelevant to her post crash treatment and accordingly was not carried out.[101]

The Court Martial of SAS Sniper Danny Nightingale led to a letter written by witness, Soldier N, and sent to his in-laws coming to wider attention. Soldier N, Nightingale's former roommate, was in prison for illegally hiding firearms and ammunition. On 17 August 2013, the Metropolitan Police announced they were reviewing evidence that Soldier N had boasted that the SAS were behind the death of Princess Diana.[102] The parents of Soldier N's estranged wife reportedly wrote to the SAS's commanding officer, claiming Soldier N had told his wife the unit "arranged" Diana's death and it was "covered up".[103][104] The information was reportedly passed onto Scotland Yard by the Royal Military Police. However, Scotland Yard stressed that this information would not lead to a re-investigation and that they were examining its "relevance and credibility".[105] They also confirmed that Prince Charles and Mohamed Al-Fayed were being kept informed as preliminary examination progressed. At the end of November 2013, Scotland Yard ended its study of the SAS allegations and released a statement: "The Metropolitan Police Service has scoped the information and is in the process of drawing up conclusions, which will be communicated to the families and interested parties first, before any further comment can be made,"[106] On 16 December, it emerged from Sky News reports that there was "no credible evidence" that the SAS was involved in the death of the Princess and the others, and thus no reason to re-open the investigation.[107][108]

The Murder of Princess Diana is a bestselling 2004 book by British journalist Noel Botham which disputes the official version of events and suggests an orchestrated conspiracy. A fictionalised telemovie adaption, The Murder of Princess Diana was later released.

Unlawful Killing, a British documentary film about the deaths of Diana and Dodi, was shown May 2011 in Cannes, while the 2011 Cannes Film Festival was in progress. It was directed by Keith Allen and funded by Mohamed Al-Fayed. The film was not shown in British cinemas; lawyers for the producers suggested that 87 cuts needed to be made before it could be certified for release.[109] Following its failure to gain insurance against possible legal action, following putative distribution in the United States, the film was shelved in 2012.[110]