French police now believe that the death of Dodi and Diana was ““99 percent’’ the fault of Henri Paul, according to a source close to the investigation. Though the official inquiry will drag on for months, the authorities are closing in on a straightforward conclusion: that the Mercedes S-280 driven by Henri Paul was going too fast–certainly more than 80 mph; that Paul was impaired by alcohol; that he had been taking prescription drugs, and that he swerved to avoid a slow-moving car as he entered a tunnel. Unable to control the Mercedes, he bounced off the wall and slammed into a pillar, killing himself, Fayed and Diana and gravely injuring a Fayed family bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones. The paparazzi chasing Dodi and Diana are not blameless. But the French police believe that the cameramen on their motorcycles were too far behind the Mercedes to have directly caused the crash.
Princess Diana, it appears, really did die a needless death. As British mourners and Diana admirers all over the world continued to struggle with their grief, French investigators pored over skid marks, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and ran yet another test of Henri Paul’s blood. The results only served to deepen the depressing belief that the crash could have been avoided had the driver not been drunk.
Even the Fayed family has stopped trying to defend Henri Paul. As the owner of the Paris Ritz, Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s father, was Paul’s employer, and the hotel’s managers are potentially liable for the driver’s actions. At first, Fayed family spokesmen sought to cast doubt on reports from the Paris police that Paul was drunk. Hotel security videos showed Paul, looking perfectly normal, walking about and conferring with Dodi before the Mercedes left the hotel shortly after midnight. The Fayeds produced an eminent British pathology professor who asserted that the initial tests showing alcohol in Paul’s blood were inconclusive because they came from a single sample, which might have been contaminated. But last week a new blood test, taken at the request of both the Fayed and the Paul families, eliminated any doubt. Paul’s blood had more than three times the legal limit of alcohol, the equivalent of about a bottle and a half of wine. His blood also showed traces of the widely used Prozac and tiapride. Tiapride, which is not marketed in the United States, is used in France mainly as a treatment for tics and stuttering (typically in Parkinson’s patients) and to ease the pain of alcohol withdrawal. Unlike some older antidepressants, neither drug is believed to greatly enhance the effects of alcohol. ““The medications are primarily a red herring,’’ says Dr. Jack Cornelius, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. The alcohol consumed by Paul was more than enough to make him a dangerous driver. By one estimate, a driver with a blood- alcohol level of 1.5–less than Paul’s–is as much as 380 times more likely to crash than a sober driver.
It is still not known how long Paul had been taking antidepressants, or exactly why. The Ritz initially described Paul as a former commando, a captain in an elite unit. His formal military record, however, shows that he never rose above the rank of lieutenant in the reserves, and his official duties appear mundane–handling security for an air base. A native of Brittany, a cold and remote region of France known for its dour people, Paul had a live-in girlfriend for five years. In an interview with a French paper the woman, who gave only the name ““Laurence P.,’’ said that Paul had impressed her with his strong self-control. But in 1995 she left him. This year Paul was passed over for the job of chief of security at the Ritz (the hotel will not say why). He apparently began seeking solace in bars. According to a source close to the Fayeds, Paul quit drinking for a year–but recently started again.
On the last day of his life, Paul played tennis in the afternoon, passing up his usual mugs of draft beer for a couple of Coca-Colas. At about 3 p.m. he went to the airport to pick up Diana and Dodi. But after he got off duty at 7 p.m. he went to a bar–most probably Harry’s Bar, a well-known watering hole around the corner from the Ritz. By about 10 p.m. he was in good spirits. When he took his car from where it was parked in front of a lesbian bar near his apartment, he made it a point to say hello to his neighbors there. (The owner of that bar, who called herself ““Josy,’’ told NEWSWEEK that Paul, who occasionally drank there, once bragged, ““I work for a billionaire.’’) He had gotten a call on his cell phone to return to the hotel. Photographers staking out Dodi and Diana in the Ritz’s courtyard later said that Paul was behaving unusually as everyone stood around waiting for the chase to resume as midnight approached. Normally reserved and undemonstrative, Paul was seen strutting about, said Jacques Langevin, one of the photographers. One paparazzo was heard asking, ““Has he been drinking, or what?''
There are conflicting accounts about whether Paul had anything to drink while he was at the Ritz. The small, discreet bar at the back of the hotel was closed for renovations. Paul would have had to do his tippling in a more open bar near the entrance, where he would have been in plain view of his superiors at the hotel. But he was unquestionably inebriated when he got behind the wheel.
Mohamed Al Fayed is now said by his spokesman, Michael Cole, to be ““appalled’’ and ““outraged that a man in that condition could get into a car and present himself for work in that way.’’ Had the Ritz Hotel known that Paul had a drinking problem, the spokesman said, the security officer ““would have been summarily sacked.’’ But in his 11 years at the Ritz, Paul had never had any disciplinary problems. Only 48 hours before the crash, Paul, whose one pastime was flying airplanes, underwent a physical exam required by the government to renew his private pilot’s license. The examination may have included blood tests for drugs and alcohol. Still, under French law, which holds corporations strictly accountable for permitting unsafe conditions, the managers of the Ritz could be held criminally liable for the accident–even if they didn’t know Paul was drunk.
Should they have known? A retired French government security officer who sometimes guarded VIPs at the Ritz told NEWSWEEK that he occasionally drank with Paul in the hotel’s small bar in the boring hours between security duties. Paul was a heavy drinker, according to this source. But like many heavy drinkers, he had developed a tolerance for alcohol, which meant that he might not appear drunk despite consuming quantities that would stagger someone unaccustomed to a heavy alcohol intake. Indeed, Paul did not imbibe much more that evening than many Frenchmen. A restaurateur in his neighborhood called him ““more bon vivant than an alcoholic.''
The Ritz staff may have been too preoccupied to pay much attention to Paul that night. Hotel employees were eager to please the owner’s son, who was in a foul mood when he arrived at the hotel shortly before 10 p.m. Dodi had planned to dine with Diana at a chic bistro, Benoit, but the gaggle of pursuing paparazzi drove him back to his father’s hotel. (NEWSWEEK has learned that the reservation at the bistro was for five people, plus two bodyguards; it is not known whom else Dodi had invited to dine.) Determined to return that night to his apartment near the Arc de Triomphe, where he had placed a poem, engraved in silver, underneath Diana’s pillow, Dodi ordered the staff to find a way to slip free. The staff scrambled to arrange a getaway: Dodi’s regular chauffeur and another driver would use Dodi’s Range Rover and Mercedes as decoys, while the lovers would slip out the back into a rented Mercedes. Given the amount of booze and pills in his system, Paul may have been the only calm one around.
It is possible that Paul was following orders when he accelerated away from the paparazzi. On the drive in from the airport earlier that day, Dodi and Diana’s car was chased by photographers and took evasive action. Police sources say they have some ambiguous testimony from the chauffeur and bodyguard who rode with the couple. According to the Fayed family version, Diana, fearful that the chasing paparazzi might collide with the car, urged caution. According to police, Dodi, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the chase. Cole says that ““Dodi hated speed on the roads.’’ But friends of Fayed’s say that he bragged about his collection of Ferraris and Aston Martins, and he certainly looked for thrills on mountains and on the water. Cole called Dodi a ““demon skier,’’ and friends say that he loved to sail in heavy weather.
There is no persuasive evidence that the paparazzi directly caused the crash later that night. Brian Anderson, a 43-year-old computer consultant from California, was in a taxi heading toward the tunnel shortly after midnight when a large, dark Mercedes passed him. Then a pair of motorcycles roared by. According to Anderson, one of those passed the Mercedes in the narrow space between the car and the curb. ““I thought, “Those guys are crazy’,’’ Anderson told NEWSWEEK. Moments later he heard a boom in the tunnel. ““The one motorcycle that had gone in front of the car exited the tunnel and the other stopped,’’ said Anderson. French police discount Anderson’s testimony, however, and say that many more witnesses put the pursuers at least 100 yards behind the speeding Mercedes at the time of the crash.
The nine paparazzi and one motorcycle driver arrested by the police may still be in legal trouble for leaving the scene of the accident or for failing to lend assistance. Phone records show only one call for help by the photographers, who kept on snapping pictures. One French daily reported that Diana mumbled ““Leave me alone’’ to doctors who were trying to fit her with an oxygen mask. But French officials have no evidence that Diana was conscious or made any remarks to police or rescuers after the crash. The French did not perform an autopsy on Diana. A ““Coroner for the Royal Household,’’ Dr. John Burton, will make a formal inquest into the cause of her death and issue a report sometime in the next few months.
There is a survivor who does know what happened inside the car during its fatal, final moments. Bodyguard Rees-Jones has managed–despite severe mouth and tongue lacerations –to communicate at least one message to French authorities. ““There was nothing I could do’’ is all it says. Had others done more, Diana might still be alive.
Few dispute the Mercedes S-280’s basic course: it sped into the tunnel in the left lane, swerved to the right, ricocheted off the wall struck the 13th pillar and spun around to face the opposite direction. Why the car swerved is still uncertain. Two leading theories:
Theory one; As the Mercedes enters the tunnel, it quickly approaches a car traveling about 30 mph. It swerves right to avoid collision.
Witnesses in various locations claim the paparazzi were at least one to two car-lengths behind the Mercedes as it entered the tunnel. In this scenario, driver Henri Paul would be more likely to be at fault than the photographers.
Theory two; A motorcycle carrying paparazzi narrowly passes the Mercedes on the left and cuts in front ot it. The car swerves right ti pass.
A witness who followed the Mercedes into the tunnel claims a second motorcycle raced behing the car and remained at the scene after the accident. The motorcycle in front, the witness says, briefly stopped, then sped away.
Lethan mix Tests have confirmed Paul’s blood-alcohol level-and found two drugs in his system:
Prozac Antidepressant. No medical evidence that the drug enhances the effects of alcohol.
Tiapride Used to treat psychotic conditions, alcohol abuse, anxiety and Parkinson’s disease.
