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Visit
Mohammed Al-Fayed's website and read his account of Diana's
death
Diana
crash inquiry report: Final report by Paris prosecutor's
office
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and the Princess of Wales by Richard
Tomlinson
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plot to assassinate President Milosevic of Serbia in 1992 by
Richard Tomlinson
We
the People: the Diana forum
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Princess
Diana outside the Ritz on August
30th
So far in our
research, we have found 15 people who were eye witnesses to
the crash, some of whom were French citizens, others were
tourists from either the US or Britain. Here is a summary of
them:
Francoise
and Valerie Levistre
On September
4th 1997, Reuters in Paris reported that a French
man, Francoise
Levistre
(or Levi) had told them that he was driving just ahead of
Diana's Mercedes when he saw a motorcycle swerve directly in
front of the Mercedes, making it lose control. He had come
to Paris for an evening out with his wife Valerie, when
noticed many headlights bobbing up and down behind him in
his rearview mirror as he approached the road tunnel under
the Point d'Alma where the Mercedes crashed. From his home
Rouen in Normandy, Levi told Reuters:
"I
said to my wife that there must be big shot behind us
with a police escort. Then l went down into the tunnel
and, again in my rearview mirror l saw the car in the
middle of the tunnel with the motorcycle on its left,
pulling ahead and then swerving to the right directly in
front of the car . . . as the motorcycle swerved and
before the car lost control, there was a flash of light
but then l was out of the tunnel and heard, but did not
see the impact . . . l immediately pulled my car over to
the curb but my wife said 'Let's get out of here. Its a
terror attack' " (Reuters, Paris, Quoted on Internet
4/9/97).
Levi added that
there were two people on the motorcycle, and that he did not
know if the explosion of light he saw as the motorcycle ran
close to the car was a camera flash. Apparently, lawyers for
the Al Fayed family told Reuters that Levi had contacted
them 4 days earlier with his testimony and spoke to
officials at The Ritz Hotel in Paris. They advised him to
give the information to the Police which he has done.
Brian
Anderson
Brian Anderson,
an US businessman from California, was in a Paris taxi near
the Point d'Alma just before the crash:
"I
noticed one of the motorcycles going and attempting to
pass on the left side of the car. In between is like an
abutment. The beginning of what eventually begins to
become the tunnel.
"I saw
the motorcycle get over and begin like he was going
through the passing movement . . . I did see motorcycles.
Two, three people - one single and one with two people
and the one with the two people was the one that actually
tried to make, getting between the left hand
side.
My
attention was drawn away, the cab came to a sudden stop
and I saw an object passing in front of us, crossing
over. Sparks were flying, there was dust, there was a lot
of noise and it happened very quickly and the car came
down and rested on its tires. In that instant the horn
went off."
Stanley
Culbreath
An US tourist
who was one of the first to reach the Princess's car
described "the unimaginable delay" before anyone tried to
free her from the wrecked Mercedes. He said:
"It
was at least 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived and
the one policeman who was there made no attempt to help
anyone who was in that wreck . . . "
Mr. Culbreath
had just left the Eiffel Tower after a late-night
sightseeing trip with two business companions, Clarence
Williams and Mike Williams, when they drove to the entrance
of the tunnel:
The
front passenger door was thrown open and I could see
another man (Trevor Rees-Jones). His face was pushed into
the airbag . . . His feet were out of the door and were
just touching the floor.
Police finally
forced Culbreath and his companions to leave the tunnel. He
said:
"It
was well over 15 minutes after we stopped and there were
no ambulances . . . It was as if those there had decided
nothing could be done."
Gary
Dean
Gary Dean, said
he saw the Mercedes just before it entered the
tunnel:
"It
was traveling very fast and gave off a whooshing noise as
it entered the tunnel as if the driver had hit the clutch
but failed to change gear"
Malo
France
Malo France, a
taxi driver, passed through the eastbound lane of the tunnel
with a passenger moments after the accident occurred. He
stopped briefly. "It was horrible," he said,
"the
worst accident I have ever seen. I made the sign of the
cross over my heart. I thought, God save them, and God
protect us from these types of accidents. In the front
seat there was a man. I also saw a woman with blond hair.
She was crying, very loudly. There were two different
voices, one a man and one a woman."
Clifford
G.
Clifford G., an
off-duty chauffeur, was on the Place de la Reine Astrid, a
triangular park area near the tunnel entrance. His attention
was drawn to the tunnel entrance by the loud whine of an
automobile engine. He saw a Mercedes heading towards the
tunnel at an estimated speed of more than 60 mph:
"I
also saw a big motorcycle pass. I can't tell you how many
people were on it. The motorcycle was going fast . . .
would put the motorcycle at 30-40 meters behind the
Mercedes."
He was later
angered by the photographers, in an account he told to
investigators:
"I
noticed four or five men around the wrecked Mercedes. It
was obvious that the four occupants were wounded. There
was blood, their bodies were sprawled every which way
inside the Mercedes. Yet these men photographed the car
and the wounded from every angle. Seeing this spectacle,
I shouted,'That's all you can do instead of calling for
help?' "
"I went
to the passenger in front, who was trying to move," he
said. "His mouth and tongue were ripped off. He had
passed through the windshield and was trying to get out.
I held up his head and told him not to move, to await
help."
He then noticed
a blond head moving in the back seat, and someone said
"that's Lady Di !":
"I
understood then who it was. I repeated the same words to
this young woman in English. Lady Di tried to speak. She
opened her mouth to tell me something but no sound came
out. She was bleeding from the forehead and tried to get
up."
Thierry
H
The witness
known as Thierry H claimed he saw a car driven by paparazzi
blocking Diana's Mercedes exit from a road which would have
avoided the route through the Point d'Alma tunnel (although
it is unclear how he knew that they were paparazzi). He had
been driving in the right lane of the express road near the
Alexander III Bridge, approximately 800 meters before the
Alma tunnel. He was
"Passed
by a vehicle moving at a very high speed. I estimated its
speed at about 75 mph to 80 mph. It was a powerful black
car, I think a Mercedes... This car was clearly being
pursued by several motorcycles, I would say four to six
of them. Some were mounted by two riders. These
motorcycles were tailing the vehicle and some tried to
pull up alongside it."
Gary
Hunter
Gary Hunter, a
London lawyer, said he saw two escaping cars from the window
of his third-floor hotel room, less than 100 yards from the
Alma tunnel. His account was cited on September 22, 1997, by
Agence-France-Presse. Hunter, 41, a British lawyer in Paris
for his wife's birthday: He is quoted as saying:
"I
was in my hotel room overlooking the tunnel and heard a
car speeding from that direction . . . I jumped up and
saw a small dark-coloured car drive up the street with
another car practically stuck to it's back bumper . . .
the first car looked like a Fiat Uno or a Renault Clio.
The white car was a Mercedes . . . they both spun round
together and sped off down the street at a suicidal pace,
more than 100 miles per hour . . . I thought it was very
strange that they were travelling so dangerously close to
each other . . . their behaviour made me wonder exactly
what they had been up to in the tunnel when the crash
happened"
"My own
feeling is that these were people in a hurry not to be
there. I am confident that the car was getting off the
scene it looked quite sinister."
He has given a
detailed account of the crash to lawyers for Mohammed Al
Fayed. He said he had been told his evidence had been passed
to French police.
Gaelle
L.
"As
we entered the Alma tunnel, we heard a loud noise of
screeching tires. At that moment, in the opposite lane,
we saw a large car approaching at high speed. This car
swerved to the left, then went back to the right and
crashed into the wall with its horn blaring. I should
note that in front of this car, there was another,
smaller car. I think this vehicle was black, but I'm not
sure. Behind the big car there was a large motorcycle. I
can't be sure how many riders were on it."
Gaelle and her
boyfriend, Benoit B., parked outside the tunnel and ran into
the tunnel to flag down oncoming vehicles. She borrowed a
cell phone and called French fire department's specialized
emergency squad. The call was received at 12:26
a.m.
Joanna
Luz
"It
was a blue Mercedes and the airbag was on the passenger
side, for sure, and the horn, right after the huge
explosion there was a horn - for about two minutes and I
think that was the driver up against the steering wheel."
Tom
Richardson
"So
I and another gentleman ran into the tunnel to see if we
could help anybody get out of the car and a gentleman at
the car, at the scene, was starting to run towards us out
of the tunnel like the car was about to explode, so we
turned and ran out of the tunnel . . .
About
fifteen seconds later we turned around . . . and the
paparazzi snapping off pictures".
Mike
Walker
"Well,
we was coming from the Eiffel Tower, and we were coming
down, he was coming one way and we were coming down the
hill, and the traffic, there was a little traffic so it
was going slow there because the accident had just
happened and when we got there we seen either the car had
flipped over... and it looked like it had hit another
car; looked like it had evidently hit the wall or
something."
Michael
Solomon
Diana and Dodi
Fayed were motionless in the back seat of the crushed
vehicle, Michael Solomon, an American tourist, commented
that Diana "was just unconscious":
"When
I walked up to the car, I was extremely nervous. I had
heard an explosion, and the first thing that came to my
mind was, 'This was a bomb, a terrorist
attack'."
Brenda
Wells
In 1997 it was
reported that the whereabouts of a British secretary from
London driving in the tunnel at the time of Diana's crash
were "shrouded in mystery". It was claimed that she had
"disappeared" from her flat in Champigny sur Marne shortly
after giving her statement to the French police after she
and her husband had been told to go into hiding and not to
speak about what she had seen (Sunday Mirror, 9th
November 1997). Londoner Brenda Wells, 40, had told police
how she was forced off the road by a motorbike following
Diana's Mercedes at high speed. She also saw a dark-coloured
car - possibly the Fiat Uno and in her statement she
claims:
'After
a party with my friends, I was returning to my home. A
motorbike with two men forced me off the road. It was
following a big car. Afterwards in the tunnel there were
very strong lights like flashes. After that, a black car
arrived. The big car had come off the road. I stopped and
five or six motorbikes arrived and started taking
photographs.
They were
crying 'It's Diana' Brenda's evidence calls into question
initial claims that pursuing paparazzi were to blame. She
makes the first mention of photographers after the
accident when 'five or six' paparazzi arrived and took
pictures. But last night, despite extensive inquiries in
the Paris suburb of Champignay sur Marne where she told
police she lived, Brenda could not be
located."
Anonymous
Eye Witness Report
There were also
reports of a second car, just ahead of Diana's, at the time
of the crash, and that this may be a crucial factor in her
death.
PARIS/WIESBADEN,
Sept. 9th 1997 (EIRNS)--There are two separate witnesses,
both of whom choose to remain anonymous, who are quoted
by the newspaper Journal du Dimanche, saying that a car
driving IN FRONT OF, the Mercedes S280, forced the
Mercedes to start braking, as it entered the tunnel. The
first witness says:
"The
Mercedes was driving on the right hand, shortly before
the entry of the tunnel, preceded by a dark-colored
automobile, of which make I cannot say. This car
clearly was attempting to force the Mercedes to brake
. . . The driver of the Mercedes veered into the
left-hand lane, and then entered the tunnel.''
The witness
said that what drew his attention to the scene, was the
loud sound of the Mercedes' gears being suddenly lowered.
The other
witness, who was walking along the riverside, said he was
surprised by the "sound of a motor humming very loudly.''
He said he saw a Mercedes:
"travelling
behind another automobile. I believe that the reason
the Mercedes accelerated so suddenly, was to try to
veer into the left lane, and pass that car.''
This raises
the possibility, or perhaps probability, that Mercedes
driver Henri Paul thought, or was convinced, that that
automobile was driven by people who had the intent of
killing his passengers, and therefore, decided to pass
that car at any cost, by suddenly massively accelerating,
from the 100 kilometers per hour he was driving just
before the tunnel, to the 150 kph in the tunnel. Also
noteworthy, is the Journal du Dimanche report, that there
are 16 meters of skid marks left by the Mercedes' tires.
Police
experts say they are unable, at the present time, to
attribute a cause to the sudden braking.
Source:
Journal du Dimanche, September 7th,
1997
Now that the
French authorities have completed their investigation,
the way is now open for the British authorities to have a
proper inquest in the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi
Fayed. We certainly believe that if all the available
evidence was presented and evidence taken from witnesses as
it presently stands, then the only conclusion a jury would
come to is that they were unlawfully killed or possibly,
murdered. This, however, considering the secrecy surrounding
the intelligence services in Britain and the royal family,
is highly unlikely.
©
2000
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