Princess Diana’s death car is rotting in a police compound outside Paris 20 years after horror crash — despite cops’ vow to destroy the limo
PRINCESS Diana’s death car is rotting in a police compound outside Paris 20 years after her accident.
At the request of the long-suffering Royals, Scotland Yard announced they would destroy the Mercedes S-280 wreckage ten years ago.
Its fate was a mystery after the French demanded it back.
Dumped alongside burnt out cars and motorbikes, the limousine is locked in a rusting shipping container on site.
Our harrowing pictures reveal its sorry end almost 20 years after Diana, boyfriend Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul died when it smashed into a Paris tunnel pillar.
The pound in Bonneuil-sur-Marne, ten miles south east of Paris, is enclosed by concrete fencing scrawled in racist graffiti and topped with barbed wire.
A source said after The Sun found it abandoned amid other wrecks: “It really is not a fitting final place for the remains. Scotland Yard vowed to destroy them.
“There is no need for them to still exist. They lie abandoned and unwanted.
“It is disrespectful to Diana’s memory to dump them in a shipping container and leave them to rot.
“Many people, especially Princes William and Harry, will be very upset to find out the French were given them back.
“And seeing where they’re keeping them will only cause further misery.”
The remains are hidden in one of eight shipping containers on site, which are lined up against a wall encircled by weeds and dense shrubbery.
The pound sits at the end of a dusty road, which is regularly targeted by illegal fly-tippers due its remote location.
Just metres away from the wreckage, vandals have spray-painted Celtic Crosses on the walls – one of the most commonly used hate symbols by white supremacists.
In a further insult to the memory of lifelong humanitarian campaigner Diana, dozens of homeless families have set up a makeshift camp behind the complex.
Met Police detectives examined the wreckage as part of Operation Paget – the £12.5million inquiry that ruled Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed by driver Herni Paul and chasing paparazzi.
Princes William and Harry and Dodi’s billionaire father Mohamed Al-Fayed were assured by former Met Police Commissioner Lord Stevens it would be melted down after the British inquest, which ruled out any conspiracy theories that the tragedy was an assassination, concluded in April 2008.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said at the time: “The remains of the car have been stored as evidence in case they were needed by the inquest, but as the conclusion of the inquest marks the end of legal proceedings surrounding the Princess’s death, the wreckage will be destroyed, once the relevant permission has been obtained from its owners.”
A senior Royal aide added: “The Princes want a line drawn under the affair. Their view is the car should be disposed of privately and discreetly.”
The French Ministry of Justice only released the vehicle once British cops agreed to terms included in an International Letter of Request.
The ILOR, a request for evidence from international police forces in the event of a criminal investigation, ruled that the vehicle must be returned to Paris after the inquest.
However, the Met tried and failed to block the move and after 17 months of negotiations it was returned.
Its whereabouts had been shrouded in secrecy until being tracked down following an extensive investigation by the Sun on Sunday.
The limousine’s owner Jean-Francois Musa mounted at least three legal bids to reclaim the motor – which ghoulish souvenir collectors reportedly offered £1million for.
But he and his lawyers were never informed that it was returned to France.
And as the 20th anniversary of Di’s tragic death approaches, Mr Musa launched a fresh battle.
Saturday night Jean-Francois, owner of Etoile Limousines in Paris, told the Sun on Sunday: “I don’t know which police force has it, I wrote to the police in Paris with my lawyer to get the wreck back.
“It’s been refused by the French police, who said it doesn’t belong to me.
“But it does, it is my car.
“We asked again just two months ago, but it was rejected. It is mine and there is no valid reason for it to not be returned.
“We don’t know where the wreck is, no has told us anything.
“We didn’t even know the British police had released it back to French authorities until The Sun on Sunday told us.”
Two pieces of the vehicle have already been destroyed.
The right front door was reduced to twisted scrap in a fire in a secure attic storeroom in the Palais de Justice in Paris in 1999.
The right wing is thought to have been crushed on the orders of a judge in June 2003 after criminal proceedings against nine photographers were ended by France’s highest court.
The 36-year-old princess was being driven at high speed in the limo after she left Paris’ Ritz Hotel when the vehicle crashed into a pillar in a tunnel under the Alma bridge.
Diana, Mr Fayed and Mr Paul all died - her bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived.
In May, TV documentary Death of Diana: The Incredible Revelation aired explosive allegations the motor was a death trap that had been written off before being rebuilt and put back on the road.
Jean-Francois added: “We don’t know if it’s true or not, we’re not sure. We bought it from Mercedes themselves.”
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A Met Police spokesman confirmed: “The vehicle was made available to Operation Paget for the duration of the enquiry, on the provision that at the conclusion it would be returned to the French Judicial Authorities under the terms of the International Letter of Request.
“The vehicle was returned in September 2009.”
A Paris Police spokeswoman added: “We cannot confirm or deny where the car is held. Its location remains a secret.
"When approached at Bonneuil-sur-Marne, a guard said: “You must speak to the Ministry of Justice.”
The Sun on Sunday has made numerous requests for a comment to the French Ministry of Justice without response.