The inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, after a car crash in Paris in 1997 could be forced to reopen after the one man who allegedly knows what really happened that night finally broke his silence.
The interview with Le Van Than, who reportedly was behind the wheel of the infamous white Fiat Uno that clipped Diana’s car ahead of the fatal accident, could force a reassessment of the case.
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While Radar Online reports the full interview will be published in an upcoming book, Diana: Case Solved, and a companion podcast, New Idea can reveal some of what the man is alleged to have said.
According to a report in the National Enquirer in January this year, investigative journalist Colin McLaren, who worked on the book and podcast, tracked down Le Van Thanh to discuss the incident that claimed the lives of 36-year-old Diana, her lover Dodi Fayed, 42, and limo driver Henri Paul, 41.
‘He told me “I was driving the Uno and Diana’s car smashed into me,”‘ McLaren reportedly revealed, according to the Enquirer.
‘It was a coverup for the protection of a French national,’ he added
‘The police had worked it out but just didn’t want to give this information to the public. They didn’t want to be seen or known forever that one of their own, a French person, caused the death of Lady Diana.
‘They kept it off their official report so it never existed in the public record.’
The journalist also revealed that Van Thanh has been reluctant to say more because ‘it will cause too many complications’.
‘He told me “I don’t want to say exactly what happened,” McLaren was quoted by the publication as saying back in January, adding: ‘It would cause too many complications. The police have been involved and so have many other powerful people.’
Only one person inside the Mercedes survived: bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones. According to the Enquirer, McLaren claims Rees-Jones helped track down the taxi driver.
Radar Online today quotes Michael Cole, the former spokesman for Dodi’s father Mohamed Al-Fayed, as saying the information revealed in the book and podcast could be a game changer.
‘As a matter of urgency, this information should be conveyed to an officer of the court,’ he reportedly told the publication.
‘If it is reported to the French police or the British police, then there will be the temptation, or the possibility anyway, that somehow the information will be buried… But it certainly is prima facie cause for a new thoroughgoing look at what went on, because if this was going on, what else was going on?’
This is not the only recent example of movement in the case. Renowned forensic expert Dr Richard Shepherd, who has worked on 26,000 cases, has also cast light on the 1997 passing of the royal.
‘She was involved in a relatively low-speed impact in a very safe vehicle, and yet she was the one that was injured least in that impact,’ Dr Shepherd recently told The Morning Show.
‘When people first got there [the scene of the accident], she was actually talking and able to communicate, and seemed to be OK.
‘But on her journey to hospital she became worse and worse, and actually needed emergency thoracic surgery – and it was all caused by a tiny tear in a vein within her lungs, and that’s a really unusual injury.’
With many conspiracy theories swirling about whether the crash was really an accident or perhaps an elaborate assassination, Shepherd says the simple fact is that the princess would have survived the crash had she taken a basic safety precaution.
‘Had she been wearing a seatbelt she would have walked out of the car,’ he affirms.
WATCH: Princess Diana’s death wasn’t an accident’ says couple who witnessed crash
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