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Driver in Diana's crash to be buried Saturday
In this story: September 19, 1997
Web posted at: 6:48 p.m. EDT (2248 GMT)PARIS (CNN) -- A small dark van left Paris Friday morning for Brittany bearing the body of Henri Paul, an obscure security man who was at the wheel of the car that crashed and killed Princess Diana and her companion, Dodi Fayed.
The funeral for Paul, which has already been delayed once, is to take place Saturday in Lorient, his home town in western France. Although Paul's family reportedly preferred to have him cremated, attorneys advised that he be buried should further testing be necessary.
Unless the lone survivor of the accident, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, can explain the August 31 accident, Paul's grave may hold the only explanation as to how the accident occurred.
Nine photographers and a motorcycle courier are being investigated for manslaughter and failure to assist persons in danger in relation to the fatal wreck. And investigators have found shards of a Fiat tail light at the accident scene, raising the possibility that another vehicle may have been involved.
But despite two autopsies, a continuing justice investigation and a massive media probe, much is still unknown about the accident and about Paul, the 41-year-old deputy security chief at the Paris Ritz hotel.
What is clear is that he had three times the legal alcohol limit in his blood at the time of the crash, which occurred in a tunnel near the Seine River in central Paris.
Friends say Paul was conscientious
It is also known that traces of two drugs were found in his both -- the anti-depressant Prozac and tiapridal, which is commonly used in France to ease aggression and trembling in alcoholics. Mixing alcohol with the drugs is strongly discouraged.
But while media have found people willing to portray Paul as a drunkard, others deny it.
Friends say Paul was a fairly private man, and yet so conscientious that he may have been unable to say "no" to his boss when he was recalled after work to drive the black Mercedes-Benz C-280 on that fateful evening.
Although trained in specialist driving, Paul lacked the proper license to drive the car in the last-minute bid to divert photographers.
Whose idea it was is not known, but an unnamed driver who worked for the Ritz told French radio soon after the crash that the staff never dared cross the Fayeds, who owned the hotel. Their arrival, he said, always sparked "panic on the deck."
To his friends, Paul, who for 12 years made a living in a high-stress job trying to ensure the security and comfort of the hotel's prominent guests, died doing overtime.
"He took his work very much to heart," said Dominique Melo, a friend nominated by Paul's family to speak for them. "He was wrong (to be driving the car), but I think we all know of a situation where somebody tries to do too much."
Paul close to his parents
Born on July 3, 1956, Paul was one of five brothers and in adult life remained close to his parents Jean and Giselle, now in their late 60s. He visited them in Lorient every few weeks.
He joined the Ritz in the mid-1980s, after leaving the French air force training section in 1979. In between, he set up a flying school, which failed, and sold pleasure boats.
He started at the Ritz on a temporary contract and was promoted fairly rapidly to deputy security chief. Melo, a friend since 1972 when they met at the Lycee St. Louis, said Paul did not talk much about work, but did view photographers as a threat to those in his care.
"It could be a camera, a bunch of flowers or a canister of acid," he said. "The problem was if people constrained his clients."
Days before the crash, Paul had passed an annual medical test to allow him to keep flying. The only reservation marked on a certificate shown to Reuters was: "Obligatory use of spectacles for long-distance vision." Several of Paul's friends say they often flew with him.
Bar owners say Paul was temperate
Melo could not explain the drugs found in Paul's blood, saying he had seen no indication that Paul was either depressive or an alcoholic.
Paris bar owners have said they remember Paul drinking nothing stronger than a mix of beer and lemonade, his behavior almost the paragon of temperance. And friends say his livelihood depended on discretion.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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