Tuesday September 30 5:41 PM EDT 

Diana Driver Was Alcoholic -- New Tests

By Thierry Leveque 

PARIS (Reuter) - New laboratory analyses have found that 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 on Tuesday. 

The new tests on 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 31
crash fatal to Diana and her companion Dodi Al Fayed as well as Paul
himself. 

Friends and associates have described the balding and bespectacled
Paul, who lived alone in a Paris flat, as a conscientious and steady
worker. 

Others, however, 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
prescription drugs Prozac and Tiapride, both of whose instructions for
use advise caution in driving. 

The new tests found that Paul had been a "moderate alcoholic,"
drinking steadily for an indefinite period of time prior to the crash,
the sources said. 

Separate tests on strands of Paul's hair showed he had been taking the
anti-depressant Prozac for about four months and Tiapride, a drug
used to treat agitation and aggressive behaviour, since July. 

Doctors say the drug combination is commonly used in France to
treat alcoholism. 

Investigators say they are leaning towards blaming the crash on
excessive speed and alcohol though they have not ruled out the
possibility that a mysterious second car may have played a role in the
accident. 

Investigating magistrate Herve Stephan, leading the criminal inquiry
into the cause of the crash, ordered the wrecked Mercedes limousine
hauled to the accident site on Monday night to study how the crash
took place. 

Stephan, accompanied by a dozen officials and investigators, spent
nearly five hours in the tunnel under the Place de l'Alma surveying
how the twisted hulk of metal fit in with the evidence he has gathered
so far in his probe. 

Stephan left the tunnel under the Place de l'Alma in central Paris
shortly after one a.m. (2300 gmt) without making any comment to
reporters, who were kept well away. 

Dozens of police also kept passersby from approaching the site but
experts could be seen measuring angles on the roadway, minutely
inspecting the tunnel and taking numerous photographs. 

The session was one of several re-enactments of various aspects of
the August 31 tragedy in central Paris that investigators are expected
to carry out in coming weeks or months. 

Justice officials said they saw Stephan's move, a month after the
accident, to be a sign to the British that the French were moving
ahead in the investigation. 

Absent from the crash site on Monday night were the nine
photographers and one photo agency motorcyclist who have been
formally targeted in the investigation on suspicion of manslaughter
and failure to help accident victims. 

Their lawyers have predicted the 10 will eventually be dropped as
investigation targets, saying they had been made "scapegoats" due to
public anger over the role of the media in hounding Diana.