Word: diana
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...from under his father's thumb. "Dodi," says his friend, "started finding his legs." And on that Saturday night, it seemed as if an engagement was almost certain, even though, as the French police now say, the fabled Repossi diamond ring was never found in the car or on Diana's finger. For the princess apparently had one more thing to do before she could make a public commitment. She had to talk to her sons...
That conversation would never happen, and there would be no tomorrows for Dodi and Diana. That night their lives would be in the hands of a third person. While paparazzi may have hovered around the fatal event, the car was under the command of Henri Paul, al Fayed's trusted deputy security chief at the Ritz. It was a misplaced trust: a series of autopsy results showed not only that Paul was drunk, his blood alcohol nearly four times the legal driving limit, but also that he had ingested a troubling combination of prescription drugs. In reconstructing the last hours...
...Paul drank only Coca-Cola. That didn't surprise Garrec, who knew his best friend to enjoy the occasional wine or pastis (a French liqueur flavored with aniseed that is about as potent as whiskey). At 12:30 Paul said his farewells, telling Garrec that he had to meet Diana and Dodi at Le Bourget airport, where their private jet would touch down from Sardinia at 3:15 p.m. When Paul wheeled up to the private airstrip, he found something else that had become usual, the waiting paparazzi. At this time, Paul was behind the wheel of the black Range...
...that could hinge liability on the part of the Ritz. Paul's immediate supervisor was away that night. But why bring in Paul to drive? "Because Dodi trusted him," explains a Ritz staff member. In fact Dodi had trusted him all summer, with Paul personally overseeing security for Dodi, Diana and her sons during their July vacation in St.-Tropez. Ritz staff members suggest it was Paul who persuaded Dodi to let him drive and do what he thought he did best: shield the couple from the paparazzi...
...driven to the door. French police now say it was Dodi's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones who decided to switch drivers: to have Dourneau, who had driven the couple all day, take the wheel of the Range Rover to decoy the paparazzi and have Paul drive Dodi and Diana. It is impossible to judge from the jerky, heavily edited tape whether Paul was steady or wobbling as he prepared for his assignment. In the last image of him alive, Paul pulls away from the curb at a normal speed and heads down the rue Cambon...