This article was published in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 9 No 1 (February 2015)
1992 was the year that the relationship between Princess Diana and other senior British royals changed irreversibly. In June Diana collaborated with UK author Andrew Morton in a book which exposed Prince Charles’ relationship with his lover Camilla Parker-Bowles and Diana’s mistreatment by senior members of the royal family. The reaction was swift. Within 11 days of the book’s publication Diana received a bombshell letter from her father-in-law, Prince Philip. The letter alarmed her and Morton says that she sought out a solicitor to help draft a reply.1
Within months the Queen had moved to set up the royal Way Ahead Group – a committee dedicated to helping the royal family deal with major issues and planning the way forward. Its first meeting was held in November 1992 and in the following month the Queen requested the formal separation between Charles and Diana. This was announced in the House of Commons on 9 December.
In October 1995 Princess Diana penned a note in which she stated that she feared for her life and believed Prince Charles was “planning ‘an accident’ in my car.”2 She left the note with her butler, Paul Burrell, for safe-keeping. Later that month Diana met with her lawyer, Lord Victor Mishcon. He wrote the next morning that Diana had told him efforts could be made to “get rid of her… by some accident in her car such as pre-prepared brake failure.”3 Mishcon had this note typed up and kept it in his safe.
Five days after that lawyer’s meeting Diana pre-recorded the famous ‘Panorama’ interview with BBC journalist Martin Bashir. In the program – which went to air on 20 November – Diana declared “there were three of us in this marriage,” that she doubted Charles could adapt to being King, recounted her mistreatment by the royals, and stated she was a “very strong person” who would “fight to the end.”4
Diana also told several friends and family that she feared for her life and believed she could be killed in “an accident.”
Later that month her fears were vindicated when the brakes in her regularly-serviced Audi failed as she drove through the streets of London. She wrote about it to her close friends. Simone Simmons said she received a letter that said: “The brakes on my car have been tampered with. If something does happen to me it will be MI5 or MI6.”5
The month following the ‘Panorama’ interview, just seven days before Christmas, Diana received a hand-written letter from the Queen requesting her to divorce Prince Charles.
The decree absolute came into effect on 28 August 1996, but it was much more than a marital divorce. The Queen also moved to strip the princess of her HRH title and effectively remove her from the royal family.
Earlier, in March, Diana had been driving in London when she was hit by an out of control Fiat Uno. Her driver’s door was smashed in and witnesses said it was amazing she escaped unhurt. Although the police investigated this crash, their report has never been released.
Diana Starts Campaigning to Eradicate Landmines
Then around July 1996 Diana started taking an interest in the worldwide scourge of unexploded landmines and began collecting information and building a dossier on the industry. Her primary concern was humanitarian – to help the victims and to campaign for the eradication of all landmines.
In January 1997, launching her involvement in the campaign, Diana made a highly-publicised visit to Angola – this was the nation with the highest number of victims. She was filmed walking through minefields and stated that she sought to “focus world attention on this… largely neglected issue.”6
The following month she received a high-profile death threat. During a phone call from Nicholas Soames, Britain’s Minister of the Armed Forces, Diana was told to drop her anti-landmines campaign. Soames went on to say: “You never know when an accident is going to happen.”7
Although shaken, Diana told her friend Simone Simmons – who witnessed the call – that she was undeterred: “We must do something. We cannot allow this slaughter to continue.”8
Diana’s anti-landmine dossier grew in size to become several inches thick and she left copies with Simmons and another friend, Elsa Bowker. Her butler Paul Burrell said it contained “every fact of the landmine mission.”9
On 12 June 1997, just under 12 weeks before she died, Diana delivered a landmark speech at the Royal Geographic Society in London. She outlined the nature and scope of the landmine problem, she talked about the “evil that men do” and spoke about her vision to “end this plague on Earth.”10
Meeting the Al Fayeds
It was around this time Princess Diana accepted an offer from long-time family friend and owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, to holiday with his family at his St Tropez villa in mid-July. The offer extended to Diana and her two sons, William and Harry. At that time Al Fayed was viewed by the British Establishment as a person of ill-repute – he had recently been heavily involved in the “cash for questions” scandal that helped bring about the downfall of Britain’s Tory Government in May 1997.
Both these actions – Diana’s increasingly public determination to eradicate the mines and taking William, the future King of England, on holiday with the Al Fayeds – were seen as a major challenge to the Establishment.
In the following days two critical high-level decisions were made.
First, senior royals called a special unscheduled meeting of the Way Ahead Group (WAG), chaired by the Queen. This meeting took place on 23 July and was preceded two weeks earlier by a special preparatory meeting attended by senior royal household officials, including the Queen’s private secretary, Robert Fellowes. The preparatory meeting was held on 8 July – three days before Diana and the princes left on the contentious Al Fayed holiday – and the full WAG meeting occurred on 23 July – three days after the holiday had concluded.
The second decision was for an arrangement to be made for friend of Diana, Rosa Monckton, to organise a holiday with Princess Diana. Monckton was a person who had two very close connections to MI6 – her brother Anthony was a MI6 officer working in Zagreb and her husband Dominic Lawson was a MI6 agent who was editor of the Sunday Telegraph.
Whilst in Hong Kong Monckton called Diana and arranged a one-on-one yachting holiday around the Greek islands, to take place in mid-August.
Diana, William and Harry left for the St Tropez holiday on 11 July, amidst a storm of controversy. Following their return nine days later, a romance developed between Diana and Mohamed Al Fayed’s son, Dodi.
On 30 July Diana broke off her nearly two year relationship with boyfriend Hasnat Khan and the following day left with Dodi on a week-long Mediterranean cruise.
Their romance blossomed throughout August, interrupted only by two events – the pre-arranged Monckton cruise and Diana’s three-day anti-landmine visit to Bosnia on 8 August.
Monckton Cruises with Diana for Intel
Diana and Monckton left for the Greek islands on the 15th – “it was just the two of us” Monckton later told the inquest.11 What she didn’t say was that their hired 20 metre boat, the Della Grazia, was shadowed by three super-yachts chartered by MI6, the Marala, the Sunrise and the Sea Sedan. These were used as decoys to distract the media – who were not looking for a smaller vessel, and despite a massive search, never actually found the boat Monckton and Diana were on.12
This strategy provided Monckton with five uninterrupted days on the ocean – time to seek inside information on Diana’s thoughts and intentions, to satisfy her intelligence masters.
Diana and Monckton returned from that holiday on 20 August – and 11 days later Diana lay dead in a Paris hospital.
On 22 August Diana and Dodi departed from Stansted airport headed for their final Mediterranean cruise. The two lovers would never see England again.
The following day they visited Repossi’s jewellery store in Monte Carlo. Diana saw and liked an engagement ring from the “Tell Me Yes” range. Dodi later arranged for that same ring to be transferred to Repossi’s Paris – he purchased it from there just hours before the couple died.
Diana and Dodi finished up their cruise in Sardinia and on the afternoon of Saturday, 30 August, they flew from Olbia to Paris, landing at Le Bourget airport at 3.20pm.
They were met by French police who provided an escort for the initial part of the journey into the city.13 The police later denied they were aware of Diana’s presence in France, falsely claiming the first they knew she was there was when they heard about the crash that occurred later that night.14
Threatened by Large, Dark Motorbikes
During that journey and other travels through the streets of Paris that evening the couple’s Mercedes was threatened by large, dark motorbikes, some carrying pillions. Witnesses in the car and back-up Range Rover described these bikes as “behaving dangerously.”15 The Mercedes driver, Philippe Dourneau, said they were “coming from all angles, from front and behind – they were all over the place.”16 They took many flash photos on these trips – none of which have ever been published. The evidence indicates they were operating as fake paparazzi, helping to create an environment where later the real paparazzi could be falsely held culpable for the crash.
Initially the couple travelled to Villa Windsor and then into the city, arriving at the Ritz Hotel – owned by Mohamed Al Fayed – at 4.35pm. Whilst there Diana made phone calls and had her hair done and Dodi visited Repossi’s and purchased the engagement ring.
They left the hotel at 7pm, heading for Dodi’s apartment near the Arc de Triomphe. Once in the apartment – where their luggage had earlier been taken from the airport – the couple relaxed, showered and prepared to leave for dinner, which was to be back at the Ritz.
They left for the hotel at 9.30pm. Didier Gamblin was on security at the apartment and said the fake paparazzi went “completely crazy” and “set off like lunatics to follow the car.”17
Ritz CCTV records Diana and Dodi arriving at the front entrance of the hotel at 9.50pm. They initially went to the restaurant for dinner, but were stressed from the intimidating actions of the fake paparazzi and soon moved themselves upstairs to the sanctuary of the Imperial Suite.
The Decoy Plan – But Who Planned It?
It is after this that a decoy plan surfaced – a plan to leave for the return trip to the apartment from the rear of the hotel in a third car, whilst the primary Mercedes and the back-up Range Rover sat outside the front entrance, acting as decoys to divert the paparazzi.
Dodi approved a plan for the use of a third car to leave from the rear – but he was not told there would be no back-up car, only one bodyguard and a driver who was not licensed to chauffeur.
The evidence indicates the plan was devised by intelligence officers working from outside the hotel, employing two of the Ritz’s senior staff as agents – Henri Paul, the acting head of security and Claude Roulet, the vice-president of the hotel.
Henri Paul was the designated chauffeur – but he was not a driver, had never driven any Ritz guests in his 11 years at the hotel, and did not possess the required chauffeur’s ‘Grande Remise’ licence. To top it off, his best friend, Claude Garrec, told the police Henri didn’t like driving and “If he could avoid [it] he would.”18
Henri Paul had been receiving large sums of money from sources unknown in the months leading up to the crash. He had links to French and British intelligence agencies and on the night of his death was carrying 12,565FF ($2,500) on his person.
The third car was the only other car available – a Mercedes S280 with untinted windows, whose regular driver was Olivier Lafaye. Every evening Lafaye would finish work, return to the Ritz and park his vehicle in the same section of the Vendôme car park. He told the police that the other chauffeurs took their vehicles home – he was the only one without a garage.19
On that Saturday evening Lafaye parked his Mercedes S280 at 8.15pm. At 8.20 Claude Roulet is shown on CCTV leaving the Ritz Hotel. It is likely Roulet pointed out this Mercedes to other agents, who then had ample time to tamper with the vehicle prior to its final departure after midnight. Later evidence revealed that Diana – a person who many witnesses said always wore her seat belt – was sitting in the right rear seat with a jammed belt.20
Henri Paul departed from the hotel at 7.01pm, but quickly returned at 10.06 following the couple’s arrival. After 11pm he made four separate visits to the paparazzi waiting out the front of the Ritz. Henri was providing regular updates on how long it would be before the couple appeared. It was essential to the MI6 plan that the paparazzi were still present when Diana and Dodi departed – they would try to follow the car and later be falsely blamed for the behaviour of the fake paparazzi, the assassins.
Detailed Account of Diana’s Final Fatal Journey
The Mercedes S280 departed from the rear of the Ritz Hotel at 12.18am – there was no back-up car, only one bodyguard, untinted windows and at least one jammed seat belt in the back.
Some paparazzi were outside the rear and they immediately followed. Those out the front were quickly alerted and some of them joined the pursuit at the Place de la Concorde, where the Mercedes was held up by red lights.
Large unidentified motorbikes also joined in from around the Concorde. The Mercedes was pressured by constant flashing of cameras – many photos were taken but they have never been published.
The principal car left quickly from Concorde and witnesses on the riverside expressway saw a speeding Mercedes surrounded by several large, dark motorbikes. As the vehicle approached the exit it would take to head for Dodi’s apartment, a blocking motorbike was seen on its right.
Failure to make the appropriate exit forced the Mercedes S280 towards the Alma Tunnel. As it neared the tunnel one witness saw the motorbikes “in a cluster, like a swarm around the Mercedes.”21 People saw photos being taken – again unpublished.
Two separate witnesses saw the Mercedes – which was already in the left lane – overtaken on the left by one of the motorbikes carrying a pillion. At the same time, just as Henri entered the tunnel, he was confronted on the right by a slow-moving white Fiat Uno straddling the two lanes.
As the motorbike got in front, a bright flash was seen and Henri immediately lost control of the Mercedes. A split-second later the Mercedes side-swiped the Uno and then zig-zagged left, right and left before crashing into the 13th central pillar of the tunnel, at around 100 kph.
The car bounced back from the pillar, swung around 180 degrees and came to rest near the wall, facing the tunnel entrance.
It was 12.23am on Sunday, 31 August 1997.
Witnesses saw motorbikes and cars fleeing the tunnel – even though it is against the law in France to not stop and render assistance. None of the fleeing vehicles – including the white Fiat Uno – has ever officially been identified. And none of the drivers or riders have ever come forward.
The two people on the driver’s side – Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed – died on impact, and the two on the passenger’s side – Princess Diana and bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones – survived the crash.
The French ambulance service (SAMU) immediately started receiving calls from passers-by. Dr. Arnaud Derossi was manning the phones and he allocated an ambulance carrying Dr. Jean-Marc Martino.
That ambulance left the Necker Hospital base at 12.28am and arrived at the crash scene at 12.40am. It took 12 minutes to travel 2.3 km – Diana’s ambulance travelled to the scene at around 11½ kph.
Upon arriving Martino straightaway phoned the base and spoke to Dr. Derossi, who then immediately left the base heading to the crash scene. It was left to an auxiliary to notify the base’s off-duty doctor, Marc Lejay, who was asleep at the time.22
Death by Doctors?
Princess Diana was heard talking by several witnesses, saying “Oh my God” and “what’s happened?”23 When the doctor performed the standard Glasgow Coma test to assess her condition in the car, she scored very well – 14 on a scale of 15.24
However there was reason to suggest there could be an internal injury – Diana had been involved in a fatal, high speed crash and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. This possibility was confirmed after Diana was finally transferred into the ambulance, 43 minutes after the crash. The initial examination revealed there was thoracic trauma bruising.25
From that point it became even more imperative that Diana was transferred immediately to a hospital – the thoracic trauma was a clear sign there could be a life-threatening internal injury.
Instead though, these two doctors – Martino and Derossi – tarried. The ambulance remained in the Alma Tunnel until 1.41am, one hour and 18 minutes after the crash.
And worse, they poured catecholamine into her to increase her blood pressure (BP), even though the BP was 70 and high enough to comfortably make the 5 km trip to the hospital.
And on top of that, Dr. Derossi informed the base there was “nothing for the thorax,” twice, even though he already was aware of the thoracic trauma.26 This ensured the hospital would not have a thoracic specialist on hand when Diana arrived.
After leaving the scene the ambulance travelled at what one witness described as “walking pace.”27 Then within sight of the hospital gates it stopped for five minutes. A journalist who followed the ambulance described it as “rocking” while stationary.28 He also witnessed a doctor transferring from the front to the back.29
Whatever they were doing inside the ambulance, it required four people – Drs Martino, Derossi and two interns (Barbara Kapfer and a person called “Fadi”).
There has never been a credible explanation for a stoppage so close to the hospital.
Martino delivered Diana to the La Pitié Salpêtrière Hospital at 2.06am – it was now one hour and 43 minutes since the crash.
Six minutes after arriving Princess Diana stopped breathing. She would never breathe again, despite the best efforts of the hospital’s doctors.
Dr. Bruno Riou ticked the suspicious death box on the death certificate.30 The public prosecutor’s office was then forced to order an autopsy, which was conducted by Professor Dominique Lecomte. She found no suspicious circumstances.
Dr. Riou was never asked why he was suspicious.
Conflicting Evidence Points to the Cover-Up
Later that morning Professor Lecomte carried out an autopsy on the driver, Henri Paul. Samples taken were tested early the following day – the results indicated the driver had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 1.74, three times over the French limit.
This conflicted with evidence in the hotel prior to the departure of the Mercedes. Many witnesses testified that Henri was not drunk and this was supported by the CCTV footage, which showed him walking and acting normally.
Later testing revealed the blood had a carbon monoxide (CO) level of 20.7%. The combination of elevated BAC and CO meant Henri would have been incoherent, had a migraine headache and found it impossible to stay upright.
Yet that is not what the CCTV and witnesses saw.
A close analysis of Professor Lecomte’s autopsy of Henri Paul reveals she made at least 58 errors in her conduct and documentation.31 The police files reveal there were two lots of documentation for the one autopsy – each recording different samples taken and differing body measurements, weight and height.32
The evidence points to two bodies being in the room at the time of the autopsy – one was Henri Paul’s and the other was a person who had died in a fire with smoke inhalation.
Samples were taken from both bodies, but kept separate. The other person’s samples were used for the BAC testing and years later Henri’s true samples were used for DNA testing. The DNA-tested samples were never BAC tested and the BAC-tested samples were never DNA tested.
The paparazzi and Henri Paul were fraudulently set up to take the blame for the death of Princess Diana.
The truth is that the crash was orchestrated by MI6 (with assistance from the CIA and France’s DGSE and DST) on the orders of senior members of the British royal family, with the acquiescence of Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Bill Clinton – the leaders of the three leading Western arms-dealing nations.
Diana Princess of Wales – our humanitarian princess – was murdered in one of the most shocking inter-governmental operations followed by one of the most extensive cover-ups of our time.
The late John Morgan wrote two explosive books exposing the conspiracy to murder Princess Diana. Information on How They Murdered Princess Diana: The Shocking Truth, and Paris-London Connection: The Assassination of Princess Diana, can be found at princessdianadeaththeevidence.weebly.com. Both books can be purchased from Amazon.com.
Footnotes
- Andrew Morton, Diana: In Pursuit of Love, Michael O’Mara Books, 2004, 76
- Inquest evidence: INQ0010117
- Inquest evidence: INQ0006335
- ‘The Panorama Interview’, BBC, 20 November 1995, www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/politics97/diana/panorama.html
- Simone Simmons with Ingrid Seward, Diana: The Last Word, St Martin’s Press, 2005, 179
- www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU0APrqxUxc
- Diana: The Last Word, 178-180
- Ibid., 180
- Inquest transcripts: 16 Jan 08: 27.11
- ‘Responding To Landmines: A Modern Tragedy And Its Consequences’ by Diana, Princess Of Wales. Keynote Address at a one day seminar co-hosted by the Mines Advisory Group and the Landmine Survivors Network, London, 12 June 1997, gos.sbc.edu/d/diana.html
- Inquest transcripts: 13 Dec 07: 139.18
- ‘The Media Swarm Greek Isles, In Search Of Diana’, Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 August 1997
- Rene Delorm, Diana & Dodi: A Love Story, Tallfellow Press, 1998, 154
- Inquest transcripts: 14 Nov 06 statement read out 21 Nov 07: 57.22
- Inquest transcripts: Kez Wingfield: 2 Sep 97 Statement read out 18 Dec 07: 145.9
- Inquest transcripts: 3 Sep 97 Statement read out 29 Oct 07: 67.17
- Inquest transcripts: 3 Oct 97 Statement read out 7 Mar 08: 103.14
- Paget Report, 14 December 2006, 162-3
- Paget Report, 14 December 2006, 244-5
- Paget Report, 14 December 2006, 421
- Paget Report, 14 December 2006, 439
- Inquest transcripts: 11 Dec 07: 7.13
- An example: Xavier Gourmelon: Paget Report, 14 December 2006, 513
- Inquest evidence: INQ0004774
- Inquest transcripts: 24 Jan 08:124.16; Inquest evidence: INQ0004774
- Inquest transcripts: 11 Dec 07: 14.9, 28.23
- Inquest transcripts: Pierre Suu: 28 Feb 06 Statement read out 11 Mar 08: 150.4
- Inquest transcripts: Thierry Orban: 23 Sep 97 Statement read out 17 Oct 07: 13.7
- Inquest transcripts: Thierry Orban: 23 Sep 97 Statement read out 17 Oct 07: 13.3; Pierre Suu:28 Feb 06 Statement read out 11 Mar 08: 150.22
- Prof. Bruno Riou, Witness Statement, 7 March 2006, reproduced in Diana Inquest: The Documents the Jury Never Saw, edited by John Morgan, 2010, 375-6
- John Morgan, Cover-Up of a Royal Murder: Hundreds of Errors in the Paget Report, 2007, 188-194
- John Morgan, Diana Inquest: The French Cover-Up, 2010, 50-68
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