New Security Tape Shows Di's Last Night

Jury Sees Pictures Of Princess, Seemingly Discontent; Driver Seemingly Sober

(CBS/AP)  The driver blamed by police for Diana's death appeared lively and steady on his feet in video captured shortly before he drove the princess and her companion on a short, fatal journey.

Hotel security camera images taken during their last hours were shown to jurors Thursday at a coroner's inquest who must decide whether the couple's car crash death on Aug. 31, 1997, was an accident or murder.

Driver Henri Paul - who died along with Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, in the crash - is seen squatting in the lobby of the Ritz hotel to tie his shoe laces, shifting his weight from one foot to another and rising steadily.

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There's no outward sign that Paul was well past the legal blood-alcohol limit, as both French and British police concluded.

He also is seen bounding up stairs two at a time after conducting a reconnaissance of the Place Vendome opposite the hotel where paparazzi had gathered hoping for a shot of Diana.

Footage from hotel security cameras show that the paparazzi stayed at the front of the hotel until just after midnight, when Diana and Fayed were planning to leave by the rear entrance. At almost the same time, the couple emerge from the hotel's Imperial Suite. A camera at the back of the hotel recorded photographers Serge Benhamou, Jacques Langevin and another photographer taking position at the back entrance.

The images were recorded in the last minutes before the couple's departure. About 15 minutes after speeding off with the couple in back, Paul drove into the Pont d'Alma tunnel, where the Mercedes slammed into a pillar. Only Diana's bodyguard survived.

What is most striking, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar, is that, with the exception of the already famous image taken as the couple waited at the back door to depart on their last ride, there is not one image of them touching.

Patrick Jephson was Diana's private secretary for eight years. Reviewing the newly released images at the CBS News London bureau, he said the woman in the pictures "was a Princess who was not happy. Not happy perhaps with herself, not happy perhaps with her companion, or, just as likely, not happy with some aspect of the practical arrangements that are being made for her at that time."

On Wednesday, jurors saw video of the couple arriving at the hotel; Fayed leaving for a short car ride across the Place Vendome to Repossi jewelers, and returning with a brochure, and Ritz executive Claude Roulet returning with what was described as a bag of rings.

A video image of Diana smiling as she stood in a Ritz elevator with Fayed at 4:35 that afternoon stirred some excitement in Thursday's newspapers.

"Her last smile," The Sun's headline said. "Haunting images of a joyful Diana hours from tragedy," The Daily Telegraph said. The Daily Mirror said few photographs of the princess "ever captured her looking quite as relaxed and happy."

"What did her smile signify?" the Daily Mail's front page asked.

"She radiates happiness," the Mail said, contrasting it to a photo of the couple's final, fatal departure from the hotel - showing the back of her head - "in which she appears anxious and agitated."

Whether Diana and Fayed had planned to announce their engagement on Aug. 31 is one of the questions before the jury, as is the claim that she was pregnant with Fayed's child.

Both claims are part of Mohamed al Fayed's insistence that the princess and his son were the targets of a plot directed by Prince Philip, the queen's husband.

The coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, told the jury on Tuesday that there was evidence that Diana was using contraceptive pills, and that she had given no hint to friends and associates that she might be pregnant.

Baker has noted more than once that the romance was just six weeks old when the couple died.

[robertkjjj]

There are a few people in this world that are crazier and more deluded than Mohamed al Fayed. Jimmy Carter comes to mind. But I digress. Fayed has had 10 years to come to terms with his grief. 10 years to read and study the evidence. 10 years and investigation after investigation after investigation. This never seems to end. This man simply can%u2019t believe that his son died as a result of something that happens to thousands of people every week, worldwide: a person drove drunk, and crashed. How hard is it to believe this? Virtually every one of you reading this either knows someone who has received a DUI, gotten a DUI yourself, or knows someone who has been hurt or killed as the result of a drunk driver. But no. Fayed wants to believe in farfetched, absurd, and obscenely complex murder plots, conspiracies, on and on and on. There has never been a single piece of evidence to suggest a murder plot, a botched blood sample, or even why someone would choose murder people by driving a Mercedes into a concrete post at 80mph. The whole idea is ludicrous and insane. Fayed is living proof that even the rich and powerful can be just as crazy as a homeless man on street, clutching his wine bottle and screaming at the sun.