Diana’s death continues to fuel conspiracy theories 25 years later

A quarter of a century after Diana’s death, Welsh conspiracy theories continue to fuel myths such as the murder of a princess or the involvement of the British royal family, despite official investigations claiming she died in a car crash in Paris.

This was finally confirmed in 2008 by a British forensic death inquiry. Lady Dee36 years old and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed42, concluding that the tragedy was due to careless murder.

Blame, according to evidence collected by the police, fell on Henri Paul, the driver of the Mercedes that crashed on the Pont du Alma in Paris on the night of August 30, 1997, while the car was being pursued by a group of photographers in search of a valuable photograph of the then most famous women in the world.

Only the couple’s bodyguard, Trevor Rhys Jones, survived, who, however, was never able to provide enlightening testimony about the event because he suffered from amnesia, a circumstance that has raised suspicion among conspiracy theorists, who realize he may have been silenced.

The jury of this investigation also found guilty of the reckless murder of the “paparazzi” who followed the car, which initially caused a wave of outrage directed at the sensational media.

“The Queen Did It”

The first members of the Parisian crime gang to arrive at the scene of the accident were working on these same hypotheses, but in the following days, all sorts of theories began to spread like wildfire, some caused by the Internet, which was still in its infancy, and others defending key characters.

Just 24 hours after the event, Mohammed Al Fayedfather Dodi and then the owner of the Harrods department store, petitioned for a manslaughter case, while the Paris prosecutor’s office announced that Paul had tripled the legal level of alcohol in the blood.

A few days later, a funeral was held in Westminster Abbey (London) in memory of Lady Dee, at which the princess’s brother Charles spoke out against the press. A private funeral for the princess followed at the Spencer family home, Althorp House, in Northamptonshire, in north-central England.

The foundation was laid for the most unlikely suspicions to take root, as evidenced by the graffiti that appeared at the Alma bridge: “Paparazzi killer” or “The queen did it.”

There begins the journey down the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland, the place where conspiracy theorists recommend heading in search of answers, whether it be exposing the pandemic, climate change, or Diana’s death.

A hole that is difficult to get out of because it is tempting to think that some photographer actually worked not for the media, but for the intelligence agencies in charge of executing it, one of the theories that the British channel Channel 4 is now exploring in a four-part documentary : “Investigating Diana: Death in Paris” (Investigating Diana: Death in Paris).

The program, executed in the purest style of the true crime genre, deals, for example, with the possibility that attacks on the sensational press served to divert attention from the real authors, in the opinion of Al Fayed in recent statements.

Thus, the Egyptian tycoon repeats the thesis he has supported for the past 25 years, in which he assures that the death of his son and princess was due to a “conspiracy” because they both had wedding plans.

Hitmen to kill Diana

The conclusions of two investigations, a 2006 police and a 2008 judicial one, which assert that it was a “tragic incident” and negligent homicide, respectively, remain improbable.

He continues to cling to, for example, a letter published by the British tabloid Daily Mirror in which Dianaten months before her death, says that her husband, Charles of England, hatched a plan to kill her in a car accident, for which he appeared for questioning by the police.

For this reason, Al Fayed accused the royal family of conspiring with the secret services to kill Diana and Dodi because the princess was pregnant with their Muslim son.

His accusing finger pointed directly at the husband of Elizabeth II, the late Duke of Edinburgh.

In this context, the aforementioned documentary explores the existence of hitmen with the testimony of a witness who claims that shortly before the incident, he saw a beam of light, possibly a camera flash, coming out of a motorcycle that had overtaken Mercedes, seeing that the flash caused Henri to lose control.

Another witness says that moments after the accident, she saw a white Fiat Uno zigzag out of the tunnel, with a “dark-skinned” man at the wheel and a large, muzzled dog in the back seat of the car, which she recalls smashed taillights. .

The then head of the Crime Brigade, Martin Monteil, confirms that traces of white paint were found on the Mercedes and traces of light glass on the pavement, although he admits that none of these testimonies provided conclusive evidence.

Whatever the case, the documentary Diana These days, millions of Britons are hooked on proving that the princess is just as relevant today as she was 25 years ago, just as sadly as conspiracy theories. (EFE)