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Revealed: Diana Inquiry's Tantalising New Questions
stonishing claims by new witnesses are being examined by British detectives investigating Diana's death. They seem incredible. But if true, they could rock the Royal Family to its foundations.On the night that Diana, Princess of Wales died, the lights of the British Embassy — less than a mile from the accident spot in Paris — blazed until dawn finally broke over the French capital. Inside the imposing building, diplomats summoned from their sleep by the British ambassador, Sir Michael Jay, struggled to monitor the tragedy that was unfolding. Millions of words have been written about the moment that Diana, with her Muslim boyfriend Dodi Fayed, smashed into pillar 13 of the Pont d’Alma road tunnel as they were being driven from the Ritz Hotel in a black Mercedes at 12.20am on Sunday, August 31, 1997. Ever since, the precise chronology of the fateful night and the roles played by the Royal Family and the Government have been accepted almost without serious challenge. Yet the Mail can reveal today that new eye-witnesses have emerged in the past few weeks with explosive testimony which raises profound questions about the influence of the House of Windsor and the Establishment over events surrounding the Princess’s death. These fresh accounts include the astonishing claim that the Queen’s most senior and trusted courtier was seen in Paris, at the British Embassy, half an hour before the crash. Furthermore, they include a baffling allegation that the RAF crew which flew Tony Blair from his Sedgefield constituency to London to greet the Princess’s repatriated body had been on continual standby to make the flight from two days earlier — when Diana was still alive. During this investigation, the Mail has also received confirmation that two diplomats working for the secret intelligence service MI6 were operating at the British Embassy in Paris during the weeks before Diana’s death.
These two senior men — who have both enjoyed glittering careers — have admitted their intelligence roles to Lord Stevens, the ex-head of Scotland Yard who is heading the official inquiry into whether there was any conspiracy to murder the Princess. In the Paris crash, Dodi was killed outright and the Princess was at first thought to have survived. Yet despite attempts by surgeons, she was declared beyond medical help at the Pitie Salpetriere hospital at 4am. By then, dozens of phone calls had flashed between the British Embassy and Balmoral Castle, the royal retreat in Scotland where the Queen and Diana’s ex-husband, Prince Charles, were holidaying with Princes William and Harry, then aged 15 and 12. The Queen was the first to be told of the accident, at 2am, when she was woken by her personal page. Still in her dressing gown, she and Prince Philip anxiously paced the tartan-carpeted corridors throughout the night. Alerted immediately, Prince Charles
retired to his private sitting room next to the Queen’s
dressing room. There, he made calls and answered those
from Paris coming into the castle’s switchboard and his
mobile phone. |
