By Stuart Qualtrough and Jilly Beattie
The People, November 2, 1997
SENSATIONAL new evidence has linked TWO mystery cars with the death of Princess Diana.
And as the riddle of the Paris tragedy deepens, a People investigation has discovered that two French police outriders amazingly lost Diana's ambulance as it crawled to hospital.
Police investigators have now pieced together the crucial seconds before and after the smash and have come up with a chilling murder theory. Their findings add strength to the conspiracy theory that the Princess and Dodi fayed were murdered in an SAS-style car bomb attack.
Explosive experts claim a deadly device was triggered from a pursuing car, possibly the missing Fiat Uno, which tracked Diana's limo from The Ritz hotel.
Now London lawyer Gary Hunter has come forward to reveal that he saw a Fiat AND a Mercedes screeching out of the Place de l'Alma tunnel, bumper to bumper, seconds after hearing the thunderous smash.
The Fiat is thought to have collided with Diana's car leaving fragments of rear lights embedded in the front of the limo.
Police laboratories are also analyzing scratch marks of paint which are thought to be from the Mercedes, possibly a three-door model, involved in the chase and smash.
Mr. Hunter, in Paris for his wife's birthday, said: "I was in my hotel room overlooking the tunnel and heard a car speeding from that direction.
"I jumped up and saw a small dark-coloured car drive up the street with another car practically stuck to its back bumper.
"The first car looked like a Fiat Uno or a Renault Clio. The white car was a Mercedes.
"They both spun round together and sped off down the street at a suicidal pace, more than 100 miles per hour.
"I thought it was very strange that they were travelling so dangerously close to each other.
"Their behaviour made me wonder exactly what they had been up to in the tunnel when the crash happened."
Another British witness told police she was forced to veer off the approach road to the tunnel at the same time as the Fiat Uno sped past immediately after Diana's Mercedes.
Now fears have grown for London-born secretary Brenda Wells, 40, who disappeared after giving her statement to French police.
She has not returned to the Paris flat in Champigny sur Marne, which she gave as her permanent address.
Her claims prompted Paris police to question Mr. Hunter despite previously describing his evidence to Mohamed Al Fayed's lawyers, as "absurd."
Now the statements from both British witnesses have resulted in a nationwide search for a black Fiat Uno and a white Mercedes.
And their stories have been corroborated by Spanish explosives expert Pepe Alano. He insists a car drove metres behind Diana's Mercedes and triggered an explosion aimed at killing everyone in the car.
He said: "This was a remote controlled explosion. In this case a fracture explosion was detonated about 10 metres away. The attacking car would not have been waiting for the target car at the entrance of the tunnel but would have followed very closely behind them, looking for the ideal time and place to activate the charge."
The net is closing in on the missing vehicles as a team of officials scour the records of mobile phone networks to pinpoint the number of cars entering the tunnel moments before the fatal smash.
Dodi Fayed was seen climbing into the black Mercedes clutching his mobile phone, which would have been automatically located and positioned by the network even if it was not in use.
Investigators believe they can detect the electronic trace of any other mobile phone travelling in a car within 50 metres of the speeding limo.
Experts can be so accurate because mobile phones emit a continuous signal which registers with ground transmitters logging their precise location on computer.
And the new clues may also have been backed up by Diana's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, whose memory is slowly returning after the crash.
He has told police the car he was travelling in was followed from the Ritz by a white car and two motorbikes.
He has also recalled it was Dodi Fayed who personally requested the services of chauffeur Henri Paul.
Investigators are also anxious to find out why Rees-Jones buckled his seat belt moments before the crash.
Bodyguards are trained not to belt up because they may need to act in split seconds to protect their clients from danger.
Conspiracy theorists believe the occupants of the Fiat Uno may have had time to race to the crashed Mercedes and inject chauffeur Paul with a concoction of booze and drugs which later damned him in blood tests.
And the mystery deepended last week when The People discovered that the computer chip stolen from the doomed Mercedes weeks before the tragic crash had no re-sale value.
Experts believe the electronic system could have been replaced with a unit pre-programmed to automatically alter the car's acceleration and braking systems.
This would have left chauffeur Paul with no control over the Mercedes as it careered into the Place de l'Alma tunnel.
Last week detectives said they had narrowed their search down to just 300 Fiat Uno cars. But insiders claim the desperate search could spread across Europe.
One source alongside the French police investigation, said: "What police have not revealed are the facts that they have recovered two separate traces of paint -- white and black -- which suggest the Uno may have been resprayed."
The source added: "The motorcycle outriders lost Diana's ambulance when it stopped on the Pont Neuf as medics had to perform a very delicate procedure which could not be done while moving.
"The police are very concerned that this piece of information will add to the conspiracy theories."
The People's investigators are determined to unearth the cause of the tragedy which rocked the world.
But we need to know:
- Where is Brenda Wells?
- Who was driving the Fiat Uno?
- Who was driving the white Mercedes?
- Why were Dodi and Diana travelling in a single limo when security
protocol dictates that a support vehicle must always shadow VIPs in case
of a breakdown or an accident.
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