No, the guy who was found in the burned car was NOT the one who was in the tunnel that night! Different Fiat Uno.......not the one that struck Diana's car. They proved that long ago.
"British scientists commissioned by Scotland Yard's Operation Paget inquiry re-examined forensic evidence collected by French police and contradicted their findings, suggesting Le Van, 31, should not have been eliminated from inquiries.
Following publication of the 833-page dossier, which dismissed conspiracy theories that Diana was murdered and the driver of the Fiat Uno was part of the assassination plot, a Mail on Sunday investigation in Paris has dramatically shed new light on the mystery surrounding the car eyewitnesses reported seeing in the tunnel.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Le Van admits he was driving his car in Paris on the night Diana was killed and, in an exclusive interview, his father Francois has provided the most compelling evidence yet that his son was involved in the crash and took part in a cover-up after fleeing the scene.
He recalls Le Van, then 22, returning home from his job as a night-time security guard in a frightened and bewildered state but unwilling to tell his father what was troubling him.
Instead, he had a whispered conversation with his brother Dung, who worked as a mechanic, which culminated in the brothers rushing off in the middle of the night to radically alter the appearance of Le Van's 15-year-old car.
During the next two hours, and with no one else around, the brothers resprayed the white Fiat a bright red.
Breaking a nine-year silence, Francois said: "I do not want to believe that Le Van was in the tunnel that night but I know as a father that he has said things which just do not add up.
"He behaved very strangely at the time and has behaved strangely since.
"Dung helped with the respray of the car but he will not talk to me about it. What I do know is that the Fiat was resprayed very soon after the crash that killed your Princess - only a few hours later.
"Police became involved and everything became very serious afterwards."
When the black Mercedes was examined by French forensic scientists, they found scrapings on the right rear wing of the white paint from the Fiat Uno it struck moments before it crashed.
Analysis subsequently showed that it was most compatible with the Bianco Corfu 224 paint scheme used by Fiat on its Unos between 1983 and September 1987.
This immediately excluded French paparazzi James Andanson, whom Mohamed Al Fayed named as an assassin, because his nine-year-old vehicle was first registered in 1988, a year after Fiat stopped using Bianco Corfu 224.
The Paris Criminal Brigade, however, continued to investigate Andanson - and the Operation Paget report has also pointed out that the Bianco 210 paint on his car was almost indistinguishable from Bianco Corfu 224.
However, inquiries about Andanson ended when it was established that his Fiat Uno was off the road at the time - resting on bricks at his home 170 miles away from Paris.
In his report, Lord Stevens dismissed suggestions Andanson had been part of a murder plot against Princess Diana by pointing out that if he had been, he would hardly have used a vehicle registered in his own name.
French police tracked down more than 4,000 white Unos before narrowing the possibilities down to just two - one belonging to Andanson, the other to Le Van.
Le Van told detectives the respray had been done a few hours before the crash, on the afternoon of Saturday, August 30.
He was allowed to go free after six hours of questioning - despite the white paint underneath matching that found on the wrecked Mercedes.
In his report, Lord Stevens wrote: "The French experts ruled the car out because they could find no trace of damage at the likely point of impact and the rear light fittings showed a date of manufacture which matched the vehicle."
But Lord Stevens suggested the driver could simply have bought a second-hand light. Crucially, Le Van's brother was a mechanic and there was also a two-month gap between the crash and interviewing him - ample time to find an ideal replacement.
The Stevens report also says the Operation Paget team spoke to a friend of Le Van who said the respray took place after the crash - conflicting with what Le Van told them in a brief phone conversation.
Le Van also told French investigators that he could not have been at the Alma Tunnel at the time of the crash because he was working as a security guard at a Renault factory in Gennevilliers, just outside Paris, between 7pm and 7am.
But although he gave police the address of the car plant, his family say neither the French nor British police spoke to colleagues to verify his alibi.
The crash also occurred almost half- way through his shift - when he would have been entitled to a break, with his father's home just a short ride away.
Tellingly, he also admitted to detectives that he had his muzzled rottweiler in the rear of his car - eyewitnesses to the devastation in the tunnel described the Fiat Uno as having a large dog wearing a muzzle or bandana in the back.
Parisians Georges and Sabine Dauzonne are quoted in the report saying they joined the westbound carriageway of the embankment expressway after the Alma underpass and saw a white Fiat Uno driving erratically as it emerged from the tunnel.
Mr Dauzonne said: "I noticed that the car was zigzagging as it came out of the tunnel, so that it almost touched my left-hand side as we were travelling side-by-side.
"I said to myself, the driver must be drunk and I was afraid he would hit me, so I sounded my horn.
"The man, who was adjusting his rear-view mirror, slowed down enough for me to overtake him.
"I had the impression he was going to reverse because he was paying so much attention to his rear-view mirror.
"A large dog was on the rear seat and, although it was sitting, I could see its head.
"It must have been an Alsatian or a black Labrador, wearing an orange muzzle or bandana."
When French police finished their investigation, they had not established the identity of the Uno driver.
Had they found him, he would almost certainly have been charged, as it is an offence in France to leave the scene of a crash."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=424546&in_page_id=1770
YaYa
