DIANA’S SECRETS ‘BURIED FOR 75 YEARS’
SECRET 6,000-PAGE FILE LOCKED UP UNTIL 2082
THE full facts about Princess Diana’s death have been hidden by the secretive French authorities, critics fear.
Courts in Paris are using an obscure “75-year rule” to block access to a one-metre tall dossier that is thought to hold the key to the mystery surrounding her death.
It means the “truth” about the tragedy may not be uncovered until at least 2082.
FRENCH courts are using an obscure rule to block access to a file on Princess Diana’s death.
The information could now be kept secret until 2082 at the earliest.
The move has sparked claims of a cover-up of the 1997 Paris car crash in which Diana, her lover Dodi Al Fayed, 42, and their driver Henri Paul died.
A source who had viewed part of the
6,000-page dossier told us: “It stinks of a cover-up and conspiracy at the highest level, and is typical of French bureaucracy.”
The files contain all the evidence compiled by French police.
The papers put together during their 18-month investigation stands at almost a metre high.
Many believe the file holds information showing Princess Di’s death was suspicious. The French only admitted the dossier existed after we spent months asking to view case files.
When it seemed authorities were on the verge of allowing access, they mysteriously changed their minds.
They then added it was going to be kept from public view for decades.
Authorities at the Palais de Justice in the French capital, where the documents are kept locked up, said they were using “article L. 213-2” of their “heritage code” to prohibit access. It shields files from public view for at least 75 years from their completion date.
As the file on Diana, 36, was finished in
2007, it will be kept secret until at least the year 2082.
It is understood, however, that authorities have the power to review whether to release the file at that time, meaning it may never be seen in full by the public. A spokesman for the Palais de Justice said: “The investigation file is placed in the archives of the Paris Court of Appeal. “It cannot be consulted before the expiration of a period of 75 years. There is no online version of this archive.” When we pressed French authorities to provide justification for using an obscure rule to lock away the Diana evidence file, a spokesman for the Palais de Justice brushed off our request by adding: “Just keep sending letters.”
In 2007, French authorities bizarrely claimed they had lost the mammoth file just weeks ahead of the inquest into Diana’s death.
Sources told us it contains statements from around 200 witnesses, along with results of forensic tests on driver Henri Paul, 41. A British lawyer working on the Diana inquest said at the time: “It is scarcely believable that such crucial evidence could be lost.”
The inquest concluded that Diana and Dodi, inset, were unlawfully killed, blaming the crash on grossly negligent driving by pursuing paparazzi and Henri Paul. For years, conspiracy theorists have speculated French authorities helped to have Diana murdered, then covered it up. They say their suspicions are supported by the length of time it took ambulance drivers to rush Di to hospital and the speed with which evidence – including the princess’s crumpled Mercedes – was cleared from the scene.