DIANA PRINCESS OF WALES - KEY DIANA EVIDENCE WILL STAY SECRET FOR 100 YEARS

Vital evidence relating to the tragic death of late British royal DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES will remain secret for 100 years under French law.

London's Metropolitan Police are conducting a new investigation into Diana's death following a high speed car crash in Paris in 1997, but their attempts to learn the identities of 24 bodies who shared a mortuary with her dead chauffeur HENRI PAUL have been rejected.

According to British newspaper the Daily Express, investigating officers believe blood may have been taken from one of the other corpses in a bid by secret agents to frame Paul for drink driving.

MOHAMED AL FAYED, the father of Diana's lover DODI who also died following the crash, is certain the French authorities refusal to divulge information about the 24 dead people is further evidence of a cover-up operation.

His spokesperson says, "We have struggled for years to establish the identity and cause of their deaths. This just reaffirms our belief that there is an orchestrated cover-up.

"Until anybody can prove otherwise, we believe that Diana was murdered."

But under French law death certificates make no mention of cause of death, and further information is only made available to close relatives of the deceased.

A French judicial spokesperson tells the Daily Express, "Even if the identities of the others in the morgue were made public, there is no possibility of us knowing how they died."