Olympics Fans Pay Tribute to Princess Diana at Spot of Her Death

Thousands of sports fans paid tribute to the late Princess Diana by visiting the scene of her death in a car accident in Paris. Fans attending the Olympic Games are taking time out to visit the tunnel in central Paris where the accident took place 27 years ago. The tunnel is located under the Flame of Liberty monument, which has become an unofficial memorial to the late Princess. Pont de l’Alma is in the heart of the popular European city, located a short walk from one of its most famous landmarks, the Eiffel Tower. 

Diana, Princess of Wales, died while press photographers chased her car through the streets of Paris in 1997. She was traveling with the son of British retail mogul Mohammed Al Fayed, who also died, along with their driver. Emergency first responders transported the Princess, who was divorced from the current British King, Charles III, to the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in the French capital, where she was pronounced dead from severe chest injuries hours later. 

Grieving father Mohammed Al Fayed famously did not accept that his son and the Princess died in an accident and accused the British Royal family of conspiring to kill them. Al Fayed hired private investigators and pressured the British establishment to open a new investigation into the incident in 2007. The subsequent report noted that Al Fayed believed Diana was carrying his son’s child and that this was the motive for her killing. Diana was the mother of the future King, Prince William, and the businessman believed the Royal household would not tolerate the King having a half-sibling from a Muslim background. 

The British government’s report, however, claimed it did not find any evidence that the Princess was pregnant or that she intended to marry, as Mr. Al Fayed also claimed. The businessman stated that he reluctantly accepted the report’s conclusion and would leave it to God to enact his revenge. 

It later emerged that Princess Diana wrote a letter to an aide in 1996, a year before her death, stating that the Royal family intended to assassinate her and would do so by staging a fatal car accident.