Di 'switched cars'
2005-03-16 08:10
London - Britain's Princess Diana was in the car which crashed in a Paris tunnel only because the vehicle she was meant to travel in failed to start, documents released on Tuesday revealed.
Instead she climbed into a nearby Mercedes driven by chauffeur Henri Paul, who, tests later revealed, was drunk, with three times the legal alcohol limit.
Diana, 36, and her 42-year-old lover Dodi al-Fayed were killed along with Paul when they crashed in a Paris tunnel in August 1997.
An official French report into the incident concluded that Paul was driving too fast and was not qualified to be behind the wheel of the powerful armoured limousine.
Papers released by the Cabinet Office under the Freedom of Information Act reveal correspondence between officials in the aftermath of the event.
Conflicting accounts
Conflicting accounts appear in the documents about why the couple had got into the car and there is one suggestion that they were trying to avoid paparazzi photographers who were following them.
But two other documents - including a memo to Prime Minister Tony Blair on August 31, the day of Diana's death - allege that the car in which they were supposed to leave Paris's Ritz Hotel failed to start.
"They tried to leave quickly but the first hire car failed to start," the document, whose author is not revealed, said, noting that the pair had received much media attention since their arrival at the hotel the previous day.
"The second car then left the hotel at speed. It travelled along a stretch of the river and entered the tunnel in which the car crashed."
A separate document, signed "Jay", was sent from Paris on the same day to then foreign secretary Robin Cook, who was in Singapore. Sir Michael Jay was ambassador to France at the time.
Describing Diana and Fayed's departure from the Ritz, it said: "Because, apparently, their getaway car failed to start, they got into another nearby car driven by a Ritz driver."
Diana's death has triggered a wave of conspiracy theories. The Egyptian tycoon and Harrods-owner Mohamed Fayed, has insisted the death was the work of the British intelligence worried about the princess's relationship with his son, a Muslim.