Intelligence

Witness: Diana crash was a tragic accident

Scotsman.com News - Top Stories - Witness: Diana crash was a tragic accident

DUNCAN ROBERTS

AN EYEWITNESS to the Paris crash that killed Princess Diana has said it was an accident with no other vehicles or people involved.

The testimony, published for the first time, reportedly comes from the driver of a grey Citroen BX which was in front of the Mercedes carrying Diana when it crashed in the Pont D’Alma tunnel on August 31, 1997.

AFTERMATH: French authorities inspected the wreckage of the crash in which Diana died in 1997. Eyewitness Mohamed Medjahdi said the limousine was ‘completely out of control’ before the smash.

Mohamed Medjahdi said Diana’s Mercedes limousine had been speeding towards him and "slewing across the carriageway . . . completely out of control".

The statement will be handed over by French police to British investigators looking again at the events which led to the deaths of the Princess, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul.

The Algerian-born 29-year-old said he accelerated away just before there was an explosion and the limousine crashed into a concrete pillar and the tunnel wall.

He said: "It was a dreadful sound, like a bomb exploding, magnified and echoing around the underpass. Even today, six years later, I can’t get the sight and sound out of my head. I can still hear the screeching of those brakes."

He insisted there were no other vehicles or photographers in sight when the crash happened, adding: "I am absolutely convinced, clear and certain, that this was a tragedy - but it was an accident."

The French inquiry concluded Mr Paul, high on a cocktail of drink and drugs, lost control of the Mercedes while speeding in the Pont D’Alma tunnel.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens is overseeing an investigation into the crash.

Coroner Michael Burgess ordered the inquiry as he opened and adjourned an inquest into Diana’s death on January 6. He asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate speculation the deaths were not the result of a "straightforward road traffic accident".

The British inquest will be the first time UK authorities have formally probed the deaths.

Mr Burgess adjourned the inquest for 12 to 15 months to allow time for the police to complete their inquiries and consider the vast amount of information from the French investigation.

There have been a number of conspiracy theories surrounding Diana’s death. Some have pointed to the fact the only person wearing a seatbelt in the car, Trevor Rees Jones, survived, while Dodi’s father, multi-millionaire owner of London store Harrods, Mohammed Al Fayed, maintains British secret services were responsible.

And Diana had written a letter ten months before her death in which she reportedly said her former husband, Prince Charles, was plotting to kill her in a car crash.

It was published in the book of Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, A Royal Duty, but a passage was blanked out by the publishers Penguin and the Daily Mirror, which serialised the work. Last week, the newspaper reported the blanked-out passage read: "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."

Last month, a hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh heard Mr Al Fayed’s latest legal bid for a public inquiry into the car crash. Lord Drummond-Young adjourned the hearing saying he had "a lot to think about". He gave no indication when he was likely to announce his ruling.

Mr Al Fayed has been seeking to overturn a decision earlier this year of Scotland’s senior law officer, the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC, not to grant a public inquiry in Scotland into the fatal car crash in Paris on 31 August, 1997. The millionaire was granted a judicial review of the decision after his request to the Scottish law authorities was refused in April.

The Egyptian-born tycoon, who owns an estate in the Highlands, claims he is entitled to an investigation under the European Convention of Human Rights.

In court, Mr Al Fayed’s senior counsel said his client had reached the "reasonable belief that the life of his son Dodi may have been taken by force".

Other conspiracy rumours centre on claims the princess was pregnant when she died, with a senior French police source recently supporting the theory.

Prince Charles and his sons, William and Harry, face being questioned as part of the new inquiry.

Senior members of the Royal Family have been reported to be unhappy with the remit of the investigation.

January 15, 2004 at 05:56 PM in MI6 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home