UK, French inquiries confirm Diana's driver was drunk

PARIS (Reuters) - Princess Diana's driver Henri Paul was drunk on the night she died in 1997, British and French inquiries will show, a French official who took part in the investigation said on Saturday.

Although the official French inquiry blamed the crash on the chauffeur being drunk and driving too fast, conspiracy theorists have always questioned that verdict.

Mohamed al Fayed, father of Diana's companion Dodi, who was killed in the crash, has repeatedly said the pair were murdered because their relationship was embarrassing the royal household.

He and Paul's parents said the driver was sober when the car hit a pillar in a Paris underpass.

They have said that blood samples taken from him after his death which showed he had been drinking, might have been swapped in hospital to pin the blame for the crash on him.

The French police ordered DNA tests on Paul's blood sample to prove it was his and had not been switched in hospital.

"The DNA tests allow us to confirm that the blood samples analysed at the time of the accident did indeed belong to Mr Paul," Jean-Claude Mules, an ex-French police commander who took part in the inquiry, told Reuters.

Mules was recently questioned by British authorities to help their investigation. "The UK enquiry will confirm point by point the results of the French enquiry," Mules said.

British and French authorities have dismissed the welter of conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, the ex-wife of Britain's heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

Former London police chief Sir John Stevens was called in to investigate the crash and the theories surrounding it. He is due to unveil the results of his three-year probe next week. Newspapers say he will conclude the crash was a tragic accident.

Paul was a member of the security staff at the Ritz Hotel in Paris where Diana had dined.

In a British newspaper interview on Saturday, French detective Martine Monteil, who led the French investigation, said there was "not a shred of doubt" the crash was caused by Paul's high-speed drunk driving.

"Those DNA samples and the test results were all sent to the British police," she told the Daily Mail. "Nothing was swapped."

British inquest hearings into the deaths of Diana and Dodi al Fayed are due to begin next month