Lady Diana – Top Secret. Sergio Felleti

REPORTERS: “THE NIGHT OF THE ALMA”

      THE “PITIE-SALPETRIERE” PARIS… It is a hot and muggy night, the very first hours of a lazy Sunday in Paris, late August, when the phone rings. Princess Diana is wounded, Dodi Al-Fayed is dead, a car accident in Paris, an attack...The first news coming from ANSA (National Associated Press Agency) are confusing.

      While speeding towards the Alma tunnel, hoping to see something about the happenings, Diana is already on the operating room table of the hospital “La Pitié-Salpetriere”, where the surgeons are attempting in vain C.P.R. Paris is empty, during the rush towards the Alma not a single person is seen, but along the Seine, from afar, you can see the flashing lights of the ambulances, police and firemen. At the entrance and exit of the tunnel, behind the police barriers, you can see metal debris of the Mercedes crumpled up around the pillar. The bodies are gone, but a lot of paparazzi looking for the perfect shot are still around. People giving out sketched testimony, most of it invented or transformed by word of mouth. The Princess is dead, the car exploded, Diana's body was not found...

      ANSA ROME... Many confirm that the blood test done on the driver's body was tampered with, others say that killers allegedly put an explosive device inside the engine of the Mercedes, some others state a poisonous substance was placed inside the airbag of the steering wheel and that the brakes were sabotaged. Many and too many say a lot of things that build a lot of controversial senseless rumours. Fact is that the car, chased by the many photographers in cars and on motorcycles, supposedly crashed against a pillar made of reinforced concrete, driving at a crazy speed, around 150 km/h.

      Dodi and the driver die immediately. The bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, is gravely injured. Lady Diana has several broken bones, cuts and an extremely serious internal injury given a tear of the pulmonary vein, which causes a strong internal haemorrhage. Apparently Diana was rescued and carried by an ambulance, then it was given C.P.R. many times, until she was brought into the operation room for a surgery that lasted several hours.

      Diana Spencer is declared deceased at 04:05 am of 31 August, 1997. First morning dispatches from press agencies reveal: “Diana is dead”. It seems that Charles, upon receiving the news, screamed with his eyes shut, losing his voice in his breath, unable to hold back the terrible pain he felt.

      In those days there also was an altercation within court, between Charles and Lady Diana's sons, sided against the Queen, to permit the flag to fly at half-mast at Buckingham Palace. In fact, the Queen believed Diana was not worthy of such recognition.

      Â«Diana is not a member of the Royal family anymore» is what Elizabeth said to young forty-eight years old Tony Blair, newly installed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at that time, but the Queen had to give in under the pressure of the British Government, and then she had to realize how much Princess Diana had entered the hearts of people.

      The funeral was something indescribably moving. It is hard to forget the hundreds of thousands of people thronged along the route of the funeral procession in London; flowers, cards, poems, teddy bears; the slow solemn steps of the young princes, who became suddenly motherless, forced to keep their great pain inside, as ordered by the internal protocol of court; the tears shed by hundreds of millions of viewers and the condolences coming from every remote side of the world.

      AFP PARIS... None who stands at the Alma CAN know with certainty what has happened, nobody saw Frederic Maillez, the doctor who was at the place of the accident by chance, that gave first aid to Diana and that called the ambulance. But questions start to be asked, interrogatives which remained largely unanswered: Why did it take so long for the first ambulance to arrive and then to leave for the hospital? (later it was calculated it took beyond 43 minutes).

      Why wasn't Diana brought to the near military hospital of Val de Grace, where there is the best emergency equip always ready, among other things, to assist politicians and V.I.P.? Questions bounce around, the crowd of onlookers increases, many are crying on that flyover overlooked by the monument of the torch, which sadly will become the memorial of Diana Spencer.

      A common exercise done by all journalists arrived outside the Alma tunnel that night was to count the pillars: one, two, three, up to the 13rd , the fatal pillar who killed Diana, which remained for years with that corner scraped by the terrible crash, the one that later became a place of pilgrimage. A sign of respect which began that night, while two surgeons named Bruno Riou and Philippe Pavie, defeated and resigned , were closing up the slaughtered chest of Princess Diana, flooded by the blood from the pulmonary vein.

      CNN... Journalists decide to move to Pitié-Salpetriere, the big public hospital situated on the bank of the Seine. Right there, in front of a white door, people live the dawn waiting for official news. Doctors come out for a succinct announcement: “Severe haemorrhagic shock”, “heart massage, external then internal, for two hours”, “deceased at four in the morning”. Nobody there will forget those words, the death announcement of the most loved Princess, mother of the future king of England.

      There is a great mystery, in part even today, around the end of Diana Spencer and Dodi Al-Fayed. During those hours however, none could accept the tragedy. And when in the late afternoon Prince Charles, landed at the military airport of Villacoublay, reaches the Parisian hospital to say goodbye forever to the woman he married and who will never be queen, people become the protagonist. At “Pitie” patients, doctors and many curious onlookers burst into an endless chorus: «Assassins, assassins». Charles, his face darkened, does not bat an eyelid.

      THE NEW YORK TIMES... From the hospital (where one after the other many celebrities paraded, Jacques Chirac first of all) to the British Embassy, many journalists commuted those days, trying to grasp a detail, a witness, a curiosity. Always, however, passing by the Alma bridge, still closed!?

      No, already reopened to traffic from 05:00 am, and, above all, avoiding Place Vendome, where TV-reporters from all over the world lined up to speak in front of their camera with the Hotel Ritz in the background, place where Diana and Dodi, besieged, left their suite, to never return.

      LE MONDE PARIS... But how could that have happen? Was it an accident? Did they kill her? But who and why!? For ordinary people everyone is a murder suspect, the Royal House above all. At that time no one was aware of the fact that in the days, months and years following, the cause of death of the Princess would continue to remain an unsolvable mystery, and that perhaps only future generations will be able to solve it, re-reading the history of our times.

      The princess's body is buried on a tiny island in the middle of an oval pond that embellishes her childhood home at Althorp Park, about 130 kilometres north-west of London.

      REUTER LONDON... So, these were the last minutes of the last day of a short life, the 31 August 1997. After a couple of days spent in Sardinia on the Emerald Coast, those private moments were widely documented and explained by the numerous paparazzi, which became more and more bulky around Diana during her last ride. That Saturday night of August, after eating dinner at Ritz, Diana's crew studied a plan of escape trying to avoid being chased by photographers. At 12:15 am four people got on the Mercedes.

      In the driving seat there was Henri Paul, on his side the other bodyguard of Dodi, Trevor Rees-Jones, the only one who, as they say, fastened his seat-belt and got out of the terrible car crash alive. Dodi was sitting behind the driver and Diana was on his right side.

      An official at Ritz supposedly stated that the driver was clearly excited and drunk; others, including the only survivor of the crash, said he was completely sober; later blood test confirmed the alcohol level in his blood was three times higher than the allowed limit.

      CHAPTER 1

      THE LAST DAYS OF DIANA'S LIFE

      We have highlighted the way how many newspapers and illustrated news magazines report a specific event using different times, often contrasting with each other. With great care and precision, we have tried to check, calculate and establish the exact time line of each date and the definite time of each single event.

      It's Saturday