Princess Diana photographers go on trial

Three photographers who took pictures of Britain's Princess Diana and her friend Dodi al Fayed in their car just before their fatal 1997 crash went on trial in Paris yesterday for invasion of privacy.

However, the defendants in the first criminal trial relating to the crash were likely to face only symbolic punishment after the public prosecutor requested suspended prison sentences for them.

The judge said he would issue a verdict on November 28. The case hangs on a precedent in French law under which the interior of a car is deemed private, even on a public road.

Under the country's strict privacy laws, the photographers could in theory be jailed for a year and ordered to pay fines of $53,000.

Diana, al Fayed and driver Henri Paul died in a high-speed crash in a tunnel on August 31, 1997, as their Mercedes was pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes through central Paris.

The case against Jacques Langevin of Sygma agency, Christian Martinez of the Angeli agency and freelancer Fabrice Chassery was triggered by a complaint lodged by Dodi's father Mohamed al Fayed, the millionaire owner of London's famous Harrods store.

Prosecutor Beatrice Vauthrein said the photographers continued snapping away at the scene of the crash.

"What they were seeking to photograph was anxiety, distress, it was people who were dying. If these moments are not respected, then we are sliding towards totalitarianism," she told the court.

Similar charges against five other photographers have already been dropped.

"The charges are groundless... the photographers were acting in good faith, doing their job with people like Diana, who used the press and brushed it away when she no longer wanted it," said Jean-Louis Pelletier, lawyer for photographer Chassery.

The case comes amid fresh controversy in Britain following the revelation by Diana's former butler Paul Burrell of a secret letter in which the princess predicted her death.

Burrell said the princess had given him a letter written in October 1996 in which she said someone was planning to kill her in a car crash, in order to allow her estranged husband Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to remarry.

The report led Mohamed al Fayed, who has repeatedly claimed Diana and his son were murdered by the British secret services because their relationship embarrassed the royal household, to renew his call for a full public inquiry.

The British government has rejected the demand. The Egyptian tycoon lost his bid to have the photographers chasing the car tried for manslaughter when France's highest court ruled they were too far away to have caused the accident.

Evidence at the initial inquiry showed that the driver, Henri Paul, had been drunk at the time of the accident, something rejected by his parents.