French investigators say new evidence confirms Princess Diana's driver Henri Paul was drunk on the night she died, the BBC reported in a documentary to be broadcast tomorrow.
Although the official French inquiry blamed the 1997 crash on the chauffeur being drunk and driving too fast, conspiracy theorists have always questioned that verdict. Mohamed al Fayed, father of Diana's companion Dodi, who was killed in the crash, has repeatedly said the pair were murdered because their relationship was embarrassing the royal household.
He and Paul's parents said the driver was sober when the car hit a pillar in a Paris underpass. They have said that blood samples taken from him after his death which showed he had been drinking might have been swapped in hospital to pin the blame for the crash on him. The British Broadcasting Corporation's documentary says French police ordered DNA tests on Paul's blood sample to prove it was his and had not been switched in hospital.
The DNA profile was compared with samples taken from Paul's parents and the two matched, apparently ruling out the possibility of swapped samples. "There is not a shadow of a doubt," French police commander Jean-Claude Mules told the BBC in extracts from the programme shown today.
"Top British experts have confirmed the accuracy and the excellence of the analysis done by the French." British and French authorities have dismissed the welter of conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, the ex-wife of Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.
Former London police chief Sir John Stevens was called in to investigate the crash and the theories surrounding it. He is due to unveil the results of his three-year probe next week. Newspapers say he will conclude the crash was a tragic accident.
Paul was a member of the security staff at the Ritz Hotel in Paris where Diana had dined.