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Entire 6,000 page Diana dossier
'disappears' from Paris archives
UK
Daily Mail
Thursday September 6, 2007
The entire 6,000-page French legal dossier into the death of
Princess Diana has vanished from the court archives in Paris,
a lawyer claimed last night.
The mass of official documents - which stand one metre tall -
was stored at the Palais de Justice central court building in
the French capital.
It was compiled over three years during the official investigation
in crash by French investigating magistrate Judge Herve Stephan.
But lawyer Jean-Louis Pelletier - who represents Paris paparazzi
Fabrice Chassery - said when he asked to view the dossier, he
was told it had disappeared.
Even a search of the court documents archives below the court
building failed to uncover the hundreds of missing files.
(Article continues below)
The bizarre disappearance will fuel conspiracy theories that
the highly sensitive dossier has been stolen because it contains
information that Diana's death was more than a simple accident.
Another possibility is that bungling French court workers have
simply "lost" the mountain of paperwork.
Other copies of the dossier still exist however. One has been
sent to Lord Stevens, who is heading the British investigation
into Paris accident, and another made for Lord Justice Scott Baker,
the coroner at the inquest into Diana's death in London this October.
The disappearance of the Paris dossier now raises the near comic
prospect of the British having to give the French back a copy
of their own missing paperwork, which they sent Britain in 2005.
In Paris, Mr Pelletier said he needed to view the dossier because
his client Mr Chassery, who arrived at the crash scene on the
night Diana died on August 31, 1997, was still being pursued for
manslaughter over the crash.
He said: "When I went in to the court to ask to see the
files, I was told they weren't there.
"I know files go missing from time to time, but bearing
in mind the size and importance of this particular one, it is
extraordinary."
The original dossier contains thousands of pages of witness statements,
the results of forensic tests on drunk chauffeur Henri Paul, photos
of the crash scene and of those who died, and crucial interviews
with all those involved in one of the biggest investigations in
French legal history.
Copies of the dossier that were made only contained photocopies
of signed documents and many did not include any photographs of
the victims or the crash scene, Mr Pelletier said.
He added: "I went to every different part of the court building,
thinking perhaps it had been moved from the high court archives
to the criminal court or the appeal court, but no one could find
it.
"A search on the computer to try to locate also revealed
nothing.
"I am amazed that something like this could simply vanish."
Mr Pelletier said he needed to view parts of the dossier to defend
his client against an ongoing prosecution by Mohamed Al Fayed
that the French photographers who followed Diana's car on the
night she died had caused the crash.
A spokesman for the Palais de Justice said: "Several requests
have been made by those connected to the Diana crash investigation
to view the dossier, but the paperwork is not immediately available."
It is the second time this year that elements of the dossier
have vanished.
Mr Pelletier said when he viewed the dossier last May, he found
photos of Diana and Dodi taken at the crash scene had gone.
He said: "It was odd. One week the photo was there and the
next it was gone.
"It was a photo taken by my client Mr Chassery and at the
time I believed it had been stolen. But now it is much worse.
The entire dossier has gone missing."
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