As the 30th anniversary of Princess Diana’s tragic death approaches, new attention is turning to a massive cache of secret French police files — and why they’ll stay buried for nearly six decades.
RadarOnline reports that the 6,000-page dossier, locked away in the archives of the Palais de Justice in Paris, won’t be opened until 2082 at the earliest. The documents are sealed under an obscure law — Article L.213-2 of France’s heritage code — that prevents the public from viewing sensitive national files for 75 years.
That means anyone hoping for closure about what really happened in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in 1997 will be long gone before the truth is ever made public.
The dossier — completed in 2007 after an 18-month investigation — is kept under tight guard, stored deep in a basement archive and watched by armed officers. French officials insist the rule is standard procedure. But some close to the case call the secrecy suspicious.
“This secrecy stinks of a cover-up and conspiracy at the highest level,” a source told RadarOnline, calling it “typical of French bureaucracy.”
Others believe the decision to bury the truth for so long only deepens the mystery around Diana’s final moments. One legal insider put it bluntly: “Sealing the documents until long after everyone involved is gone only fuels the sense that something’s being hidden.”
Adding to the intrigue, the French authorities once claimed the entire dossier had been “lost” — right before the $17 million British inquest into Diana’s death began. That inquest ultimately ruled that Diana and her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, were “unlawfully killed” due to reckless driving by paparazzi and their chauffeur, Henri Paul.
Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was the sole survivor of the horrific crash, though he suffered catastrophic injuries.
The missing dossier reportedly contained thousands of pages of evidence — from toxicology reports and 200 witness statements to unseen crash-scene photos.
Attorney Jean-Louis Pelletier, who represented one of the paparazzi investigated after the crash, said he was told the documents had vanished: “Files go missing sometimes, but given the size and importance of this one, it’s extraordinary.”
RadarOnline confirmed the file’s existence only after repeated requests to French authorities. Partial photocopies were once provided to Lord Stevens — the head of Britain’s Operation Paget inquiry — but the originals remain sealed and protected from any future court review.
Even more mysteriously, French officials admitted in 2006 that some crash photos of Diana and Dodi had also disappeared.
As the world prepares to mark 30 years since that devastating August night, the mystery only grows. Why keep the so-called “definitive truth” buried for another lifetime? And what secrets could those pages possibly reveal?
One thing’s for sure — this royal mystery isn’t done haunting history.
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Yep, because by that year, chances are pretty good that Queen Elizabeth would be passed on, as would Charles and if that is the case, William (or one of his children) would be on the throne and could decide, at that point, what to do when they time comes for them to be released. Makes you wonder why they are trying to so hard to hide the truth. Who are they protecting?