French 'set up' Diana's driver

THE mystery surrounding Princess Diana’s death resurfaced yesterday with claims that ­chauffeur Henri Paul was not drunk when their car crashed in a Paris tunnel.

Claims challenge official view on Diana s death pic WEN Claims challenge official view on Diana’s death (pic:WEN)

Blood samples used to verify the amount of alcohol he had consumed were taken from another corpse, says a new book.

Investigative journalist John Morgan claims to finally reveal a “tidal wave of evidence” that the ­testing process was botched.

And he alleges that Paul, 51, was set up as he lay dead in the morgue.

It makes a “joke” of the inquest verdict that Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed were killed by Paul’s grossly negligent driving, as Lord ­Justice Scott Baker ruled.

Mr Morgan yesterday said: “The only evidence that Henri Paul was drunk came from the blood autopsy results, which have since been brought into question.

“When you carefully put all the pieces of this huge complex evidential jigsaw together, you can see this is a dead person who has been framed.

“Were it not so serious, I would say the inquest carried out at the Royal Courts of Justice in London was a joke.”

Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed has long argued that Mr Paul, his security manager at the Ritz hotel in Paris, was not drunk on the night of the crash 13 years ago.

Mr Morgan’s book is published only days after leading QC Michael Mansfield claimed that Diana and Dodi were killed when a plot to put an end to their love affair went wrong.

Mr Mansfield, who represented Mr Al Fayed at the inquest, said the saboteurs wanted to scare the lovers but their plans backfired tragically.

In Diana Inquest: The Untold Story, Mr Morgan, 53, from Brisbane, Australia, alleges a cover-up by the authorities in France.

He also claims Parisian investigators bungled the inquiry.

Documents prove the long-held suspicion that there was a second body in the morgue, he says.

He points to inconsistencies in blood samples, errors in identifying the body and the fact that key witnesses were omitted from the Scott Baker inquest.

Mr Morgan says tests revealed traces of prescription drugs that Mr Paul was not taking, while finding no evidence of other medication he was known to be on.

He said: “I point readers to the fact one blood sample was labelled ‘XM’ which means ‘unknown male.’

“There is a morgue photograph showing blood samples already on the side.

“But Henri Paul’s chest had not yet been opened to obtain blood samples from his heart and chest, as was stated.

“Questions were raised, even at the London inquest, that there were two bodies in the room and that blood samples could have been taken from another body.”

The investigator spent years tracking down informants, obtaining never-before published documents relating to the crash in August 1997. He questions why such high levels of ­carbon monoxide were found in samples said to be from Mr Paul’s body.

The levels were more consistent, he claims, with what you would expect from the body of someone who committed suicide by feeding a hosepipe from a car exhaust into their vehicle.

Mr Morgan said: “If that level was accurate, Henri Paul would have been staggering.

“CCTV taken at the Ritz hotel just before the accident shows him walking normally.”

Dominique Lecomte and Gilbert Pepin, two French forensic ex perts responsible for the tests, did not give evidence at the 2008 inquest in London.

The confusion over whether the samples were even taken from Mr Paul’s body continued at the inquest.

The question was raised as to whether there were two bodies in the room at the time of the post-mortem examination. Some photographs showed a body tag on a wrist only, other images showed a tag on an ankle only.

Last night, from his home in Brisbane, Mr Morgan claimed to have certificates recording samples for two different bodies. He says he has other documentation, much of it never seen in public before.

He claimed to have transcripts of Scotland Yard interviews with Professor Lecomte and Dr Pepin, which reveal, among other things, how body measurements linked with the samples did not match those of Mr Paul.

Of Lord Scott Baker’s inquest findings, he asked: “How could the jury arrive at an informed verdict when they were not given this crucial information?

“They were in a ridiculous situation, kept in the dark.

“My researches showed the cover-up continued.”

His book, the third in a series of four on Diana’s death, claims to demonstrate “the lengths the French authorities were prepared to go in framing a dead, defenceless, sober and innocent driver”.

Last year, a French court blamed Government officials for “unnecessary delays”.

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