Paris - New laboratory analyses have found that Mr Henri Paul, the Ritz Hotel security guard who drove the limousine in which Princess Diana died, was an alcoholic, sources close to the investigation said yesterday. The new tests on Mr Paul's blood, taken from his body before his burial 10 days ago in his western France home town of Lorient, show he suffered from "moderate alcoholism" for an undetermined period of time, the sources said.
Some mystery has surrounded the role of the driver in the August 31st crash which killed the princess and Mr Dodi Fayed, as well as Mr Paul himself. Friends and associates have described the balding and bespectacled Mr Paul, who lived alone in a Paris flat, as a conscientious and steady worker. Others have said the Ritz's 41-year-old deputy security chief was a heavy drinker in the high-stress job of trying to ensure the security and comfort of the posh Paris hotel's prominent guests.
A series of earlier tests had detected three times the legal level of alcohol in the chauffeur's blood and eyeball fluid, along with traces of the prescription drugs, Prozac and Tiapride.