Medical reports contradict friends' denial that Diana was pregnant

A senior source close to the French investigation into the death of the Princess of Wales has revealed that among 6,000 documents is evidence she was carrying a child. John Lichfield reports

The belated British inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, is unlikely to please the conspiracy-theorists, except in one respect. It could settle the deeply emotive argument over whether Diana was pregnant at the time that she died.

Six years of theorising and partial representation of the facts by believers in conspiracy and Mohamed al-Fayed have identified some minor gaps and anomalies in the painstaking, two-year French judicial investigation into Diana's death. None the less, the overwhelming burden of evidence still points to the fact that Diana, Dodi al-Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, died in a road accident.

The question of Diana's pregnancy has until now remained unresolved. A very highly placed police source in France - who had access to all the documents in the case - has told The Independent on Sunday that there was a cover-up, of sorts, in the days following the crash in a tunnel in Paris on 31 August 1997.

There was no attempt to conceal what happened before and during the crash, the source said. The deaths of Diana and Dodi were accidental, the source maintains. But medical reports, which have never been made public, suggest that Diana was pregnant at the time of her death, the police source says.

Friends of Diana and her butler, Paul Burrell, have vehemently denied previous suggestions - including comments made by Dodi's father, Mohamed al-Fayed - that Diana was expecting her third child, by his son, when she died.

Rosa Monckton, a close friend of Diana, has said that she was with the Princess 10 days before the accident and that she knows for certain that she was not pregnant at that time. A post-mortem carried out in Britain after Diana's body was brought home is also reported to have found no signs of pregnancy.

More than 6,000 documents gathered or prepared by the French judicial investigation, and subsequent court and appeal hearings, will be turned over to the Royal Family's coroner, Michael Burgess, for his separate inquests into the deaths of Diana and Dodi. The documents include reports by the French doctors who fought, unsuccessfully, to save Diana's life.

Most of these documents have never been made public before. How many will be made public by Mr Burgess is unclear. They may well contain medical evidence which settles the question of Diana's pregnancy once and for all.

On the question directly before the inquests - how did Diana and Dodi die? - there will probably be few surprises. Scores of books, several TV documentaries and thousands of internet sites have attempted in the last six years to suggest that Diana and Dodi were assassinated. According to the most popular theory, the French, British and American intelligence services conspired to murder Diana because she was about to marry Dodi. The Royal Family did not want the mother of the heir to the British throne linked to a Muslim family. In any case, they wanted Diana out of the way.

Even before you examine the facts of what happened that day, a fantastic leap of faith is required to accept such theories. Is it credible that the French intelligence services - not known for their friendship to Washington - worked with the British and Americans on the political murder of one of the best-known and best-loved people in the world? Is it credible that the British and US intelligence services would have accepted a "contract" from the Royal Family to kill Diana? Beyond that, the conspiracy theories cannot easily survive examination of the capricious and rapidly changing movements of Diana and Dodi themselves.

Any would-be assassins would have needed an act of clairvoyance - or extraordinary inside knowledge of the couple's thinking - to have arranged a fake accident. The couple made a last-minute decision to go to Paris. They - or rather Dodi - ignored advice from their body-guards that they should lie low in his father's Ritz Hotel, where they had taken refuge from photographers.

Dodi, with his father's approval over the telephone, sent their limousine and chauffeur away as a decoy. He asked the head of Ritz security, Henri Paul, to drive another getaway car (a Mercedes, hired at the last minute). There is evidence that Mr Paul had been drinking at the Ritz bar before he took the wheel.

The route chosen by Mr Paul took the couple, and their bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, far away from the obvious route to Dodi's flat just off the Champs-Elysées (Mr Paul was trying to shake off the pursuing photographers). Another car - probably a white Fiat Uno - came into contact with the speeding Mercedes. The forensic science evidence suggests the Mercedes struck the Fiat a glancing blow, not the other way around.

The official French investigation decided that Diana, Dodi and Mr Paul died because the Mercedes spun out of control and hit the 13th pillar of the under-pass below Place de l'Alma. Two sets of blood samples and a urine sample taken from Mr Paul suggest that he had been drinking heavily and had taken four prescription drugs against depression.

The conspiracy theories are based on four inconvenient facts or counter allegations. First, the white Fiat Uno was never found (true). Second, there is eye-witness evidence of a flash or explosion in the tunnel (extremely doubtful). Three, Mr Paul was an MI6 agent (most unlikely). Four, one of the blood samples taken from his body suggests that he also had abnormally high levels of carbon monoxide in his blood (true).

The blood story is the most puzzling. Mr Paul died instantly and it is difficult to see how he could have absorbed the carbon monoxide from punctured air-bags, as French investigators suggest. The conspiracy theories - and Mr Paul's parents - say that his blood was switched, deliberately or accidentally.

All, or most, of these facts will now come before the British inquest.

To twist them into a shape which reads "plot", you have to believe the following: that someone arranged for a speeding Mercedes to be attacked by a small Italian car on an unlikely route, chosen by Mr Paul only three or four minutes before.

Alternatively, you have to believe that Mr Paul was a suicidal British agent. Even this does not create a fool-proof plot. Mr Paul was not supposed to be driving the couple. He was selected to drive the getaway car by Dodi al-Fayed. How could MI6 - or anyone - have arranged that?

The inquest: Troubling unanswered questions

By Cole Moreton

Several questions about the death of Diana remain unanswered, even to those unimpressed by conspiracy theories. If chauffeur Henri Paul was going too fast, why was he not caught by speed cameras? Why was he heading away from Dodi al-Fayed's apartment when he left the Ritz? Why did it take more than an hour to get the injured Princess to hospital? And what happened to the white Fiat Uno with which the Mercedes had contact?

Friends and family of Diana and Dodi would like the British inquest to go way beyond establishing the cause of death. That is unlikely to happen. Michael Burgess, Coroner of the Royal Household, will outline his aims when he opens the inquest into the death of the Princess of Wales at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London on 6 January. As Coroner of Surrey he will also open the inquest into Dodi al-Fayed's death at 3pm on the same day, in Reigate.

Mr Burgess may ask whether the high levels of carbon monoxide found in Mr Paul's blood would have made him incapable of driving, and will have to consider the claim that one of his blood samples was switched. In August 1999 a French investigating magistrate concluded the crash had been an accident caused by Mr Paul speeding while under the influence of drink and drugs. Once Mr Burgess has examined the documentation assembled by the French he will decide whether further inquiries are necessary, and if so call witnesses. Diana's bodyguard, Trevor Rees Jones, may be among those called, although he has little recollection of events surrounding the crash.

Among many contentious pieces of evidence the coroner will have to evaluate is the letter written by Diana to her former butler Paul Burrell 10 months before her death, in which she predicts a car crash.