Diana inquest hears of plot to 'assassinate' the princess

Michael Mansfield QC outlined for the first time how Mohammed Al Fayed believes the couple were deliberately assassinated as they drove through Paris.

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Mr Mansfield suggested that the couple's Mercedes, driven by French chauffeur Henri Paul, was deliberately blocked by two cars - a white Fiat Uno and another dark car, similar to a Citroen Berlingo.

At the same time there was a sudden, bright light - potentially from a military-style anti-personnel flash gun - which disorientated Mr Paul and caused him to crash

Princess Diana, Dodi and Mr Paul all died when their Mercedes 280S careered into a support pillar of the Pont de l'Alma underpass in Paris on the night of August 31, 1997.

Senior police accident investigator Sgt Anthony Read claimed the crash was an accident that occurred due to a number of unrelated factors.

Primary among them was that Mr Paul, who was speeding at well over 60 mph, had to swerve to avoid a white Fiat Uno that had unexpectedly joined the road ahead him.

However, during the course of cross-examining Sgt Read in London's High Court, Mr Mansfield outlined his astonishing alternative theory of what happened.

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Pointedly, he prefaced his questioning by asking: "You are aware that Princess Diana expressed on a number of occasions that one of her fears was that she would be either killed or seriously injured with a head injury or some kind of car accident?"

He went on to claim that it would be "utterly possible" to deliberately engineer a fatal crash designed to look like a car accident in the Alma tunnel.

Mr Mansfield said that in addition to the white Fiat Uno, which was blocking right hand lane of the dual carriageway, French witness Gaelle l'Hostis saw a larger, "dark-coloured" car, similar to a Citroen Berlingo blocking the left hand lane.

He said these vehicles would "provide a severe impediment for the Mercedes", adding: "if the left hand lane has got a dark, blocking car in front then he (Paul) has really got a problem."

Mr Mansfield went on to claim that the Princess's car was also being pursued by a high-speed motorcycle, which he suggested did not belong to a paparazzi photographer, but rather to "others who were in pursuit to engineer or cause a loss of control."

According to Mr Mansfield, the final distracting element was caused by the sudden flash of light, which he claimed may not have come from a simple camera flash gun.

He said: "A bright flash would quite clearly provide a serious distraction for a driver already under pressure from motorcycles and blocking vehicles. It might be the last straw for someone trying to control the vehicle.

"A flash could arise from a number of sources: either from the existence of a flash camera; alternatively are you aware of anti-personnel flash guns? It could arise from areas such as that."

In giving his evidence, Sgt Read yesterday claimed that the Mercedes "glanced" off the Fiat Uno, however he said it was M. Paul's "overzealous" steering afterwards which caused the fatal crash.

Showing diagrams of tyre tracks recorded at the scene, he said the Mercedes had gone left, then right, then left again before crashing into the 13th pillar of the tunnel.

He said: "It was the presence of the Fiat that required Henri Paul to steer left. It was probably as a result of an over-reaction, maybe a slightly overzealous application of the left steer that meant that he had to steer to the right in order to avoid the central reservation.

"That in turn meant he had to steer left to avoid a collision with the tunnel wall and that in turn meant that he was unable to control the vehicle and collided with pillar 13."