England’s Rose

by:Akhil

On the fateful day of August 31st, 1997, Princess Diana, also known popularly as Lady Di, sadly passed away in a car crash in Paris. Her death shook the world and, the people were in utter disbelief as to her sudden and unprecedented death. She had been only thirty-six when this happened, killing her film producer-boyfriend, Dodi Al-Fayed, and her driver, Henri Paul, along with her.

The people’s princess had always been more of a down-to-earth person compared to her royal counterparts. She openly spoke of the difficulties and illnesses she faced in life, portraying that she was a normal human being just like everybody else. Her being able to express herself openly was one of the main reasons people found her so inspiring. So naturally, when someone loved so much by the public died in a random car crash, the result was denial and conspiracy theories.

To this day, the conspiracy theories live on, even after an official British Metropolitan police investigation called Operation Paget (investigated over four years from 2004-2008) ruled the case an “unlawful killing” by the driver and pursuing paparazzi. But there is a good reason that these theories still live on even today. First of all, let’s take a look at what happened that night.  

Earlier on that fateful day, Diana was with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed. At around four-thirty, they arrived at the Hotel Ritz Paris. Later that night, at ten, Diana and Dodi went to the L’Espadon restaurant. Later on, they took their meal back to their room, suspecting that a few diners were photographers.

At around twelve-twenty, they left the hotel and started heading towards Dodi’s apartment. They got into a black Mercedes S-280 with security  Henri Paul as the driver and security Trevor Rees-Jones in the front passenger seat. Police confirmed later on that the driver Henri Paul was drunk that night. At twelve-twenty-three, Paul was driving at an estimated speed of 105 km/h, trying to shake off some photographers chasing the car. Paul lost control of the vehicle at the entrance to the Pont de L’Alma tunnel. Then, the Mercedes collided with a concrete pillar inside the tunnel, killing both Dodi and Paul on impact. Diana and Trevor survived the crash. At around one-twenty, Diana suffered a cardiac arrest when she was in the ambulance en route to the hospital. At two-one, she arrived at the Pitié Salpêtrière hospital and immediately underwent surgery. At four in the morning, she was pronounced dead.

Looking back at that night, it was a cut and dry case; drunk driving over the speed limit and no seatbelts. Or was it? It seemed a little too perfect.

Was Princess Diana murdered? Let’s take a look.

Trevor Rees-Jones, Fayed’s bodyguard, was the only one wearing a seatbelt that night. Some doctors say Diana might have even survived if she had been wearing a seatbelt. And on further questioning of the princess’s close friends, the police concluded that it was suspicious that Diana didn’t wear a seatbelt, as she previously never forgot to.

Due to him wearing his seatbelt and the only one in the car who had the protection of an airbag on impact, Trevor-Rees Jones was the one survivor of the crash that night. Some people came up with crazy theories that somehow he knew the accident was about to happen, and that’s why he didn’t die. If this theory was true, he seriously took one for the team. His face got crushed during the accident, turning his bones to powder. Doctors put him in a coma for ten days while reconstructing his face with small pieces of titanium. Adding on top of this, he had a broken wrist and chest injuries that took him years to get over. So implying that the man was willing to sacrifice his life, with no benefits whatsoever,  to stage the murder of Princess Diana was stretching it a bit too far.   

The Pont de L’Alma tunnel had fourteen surveillance cameras, all of which didn’t capture anything that night. Some were in the wrong direction, and some were not working. So, they had no footage of the car crash. Suspicious or not?   

Later on, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, accused the royals of planning the murder because they thought Diana was pregnant with Dodi’s child. He said the royals could not accept that an Egyptian Muslim could eventually be the stepfather of the future king of England. Naturally, his accusation opened up pathways to various conspiracy theories. But was Diana pregnant with Dodi’s child? That’s where it gets even more suspicious.

In the hospital where they pronounced Diana dead, the body was deteriorating due to the hot temperature of the room. Out of instinct, the doctors decided to embalm her body as quickly as possible to make Lady Di presentable for her funeral.  In doing so, without an autopsy, they couldn’t test if she was pregnant or not. They also tested blood samples of the princess from the crash scene for traces of pregnancy or any other substance. All the tests came back negative. But some doctors confirmed that this was not enough to say she was not pregnant.

Another accusation against the royals was that Prince Charles needed to kill Princess Diana, allowing him to marry again. So, the public made a theory that the royals hired MI6 to take out Princess Diana. Three major conspiracy theories, investigated during Operation Paget, emerged from this speculation. The first being that the driver Henri Paul was in on the murder plan.

His driving the Mercedes was a last-minute decision due to the unavailability of any other driver for Lady Di. Speculations arose that he was working with the secret services to kill Diana. He earned about 35,000 euros per year working for the princess.  The evidence was that he had a large amount of money(nearly 250,000 euros) in his account at the time of the princess’s death. Where did it come from, and why did he have that much?

The second theory was that the paparazzi chased the vehicle down until the entrance of the tunnel and that they tried flashing large amounts of light into the driver’s eyes using their cameras, distracting him and causing him to crash inside the tunnel. Later it came to light that the MI6 was known to use a similar technique to ‘eliminate’ their targets. So, the theory was that the MI6 paid off the paparazzi to cause the crash.

The third theory was that a car had rammed into the black Mercedes as it entered the tunnel, causing the driver to lose control and crash. Later on, the police proved that a white Fiat Uno had collided with the princess’s car, making them crash. A potential suspect with the same car design was suspected but never convicted for the crime.

In a recent update, the hacker group known as Anonymous released a statement informing the public that the royal family had murdered Lady Di. Anonymous is a group of the most famous hacktivists or hackers spread out across the globe. The reason, they claimed, was that she found out about a human trafficking ring linked to the royals of England. They claimed Lady Di was collecting substantial evidence against the royal family and was soon going to release this evidence. They, therefore, declared that the royal family, viewing her as a threat to their monarch, “shut her up” for good.

To conclude, we have to admit that Lady Di’s death was rather suspicious. The number of ‘coincidences’ was way too many. And the lack of evidence only leads to more suspicion. I believe that Princess Diana died of a car crash that the royal family orchestrated. And there is more than enough evidence to support my conclusion. But the power and authority of the royal family overrule the right to the truth. I hope that one day the truth comes out and Princess Diana gets the justice she deserves. Don’t you?