- LONDON (Reuters) - The second British television documentary in two
days about the death of Princess Diana sought to debunk a rash of conspiracy
theories about the fatal car crash. Thursday's program claimed to prove
that Henri Paul, the driver of the limousine in which Diana and her lover
Dodi Fayed died, was extremely drunk, had challenged waiting photographers
to a chase and was not a qualified chauffeur. Its findings were in direct
opposition to those in a rival documentary screened Wednesday evening,
which claimed Paul had links with secret services and cast doubt on three
post-mortem tests that showed he had drunk three times more than the French
drink driving limit. The documentaries, 10 months after Diana's death in
the high speed car crash in Paris, have snared huge audiences in Britain,
which is still struggling to come to terms with her loss at the age of
36.
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- The latest documentary dismissed the
speculation surrounding Diana's death and declared it ``was no more than
a tragic accident.''
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- But it did pin some responsibility on
billionaire Mohamed al Fayed, Dodi's father, who it said had failed to
provide the mother of Britain's future heir to the throne with the kind
of security he insisted on for himself. The Channel Four program makers
interviewed barmen at the Ritz, who said Paul had been drinking pastis
and that he had staggered out of the hotel bar before setting out on the
doomed journey, in which he also died. The Mercedes car in which Paul drove
Diana and Dodi away from the Paris Ritz at top speed was summoned from
a pool of limousines at the hotel and was not even checked for terrorist
devices, Al Fayed's former head of security, Bob Loftus, told the program.
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- Where Al Fayed would routinely have an
extra car alongside his for added security, the outrider cars that should
have driven beside Diana's were sent to the other side of the hotel as
decoys for the paparazzi, the program said. ``Compared with the protection
that Fayed affords himself ... that which was afforded to the mother of
the future king of England was not up to that very high standard, it was
a Mickey Mouse operation,'' Loftus said. A former chauffeur who delivered
the Mercedes to the back of the hotel told how he had heard Paul taunting
waiting photographers that they would never catch up with him on their
motorbikes. Roland Biribin, head of the French of Association of Limousine
Companies, said Paul should not have been driving the car anyway, because
he had not passed the medical examination and six-month trial required
to qualify as a limousine chauffeur.
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- The program makers accused Fayed, owner
of London's prestigious Harrod's store, of promoting conspiracy theories
to deflect any blame for the crash from himself. Fayed alleges Diana was
murdered because she was about to marry his son, a Muslim, and so embarrass
the royal family. He has never specified who he believes ordered her death.
Such theories have gained wide currency in Britain, where Diana's funeral
sparked the biggest outpouring of public grief in memory.
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- Around 36,000 conspiracy sites can be
found on the Internet but they have been given short shrift by a media
mired in guilt about its own role in the relentless pursuit of the princess
who alternately sought and shunned the world's cameras. Buckingham palace
has declined to comment on the many conspiracy theories, but it has frequently
appealed to journalists to show sensitivity in reporting because of the
effect on Diana's two teenage sons, William and Harry.
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