PARIS: French paparazzi who chased the speeding Mercedes that carried Princess Diana to her death after crashing in a Paris tunnel are still fighting in court to clear their name, and debate over their conduct rages on.

As Diana lay unconscious, dying in the wreckage on August 31, 1997, a swarm of photographers snapped pictures of her and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, drawing outrage that she had been hounded until her death.

“The most hunted person of the modern age” is how her brother, Earl Charles Spencer, would describe Diana in his funeral eulogy.

A month after the crash, nine photographers and a press motorcyclist were placed under formal investigation on charges of involuntary homicide and failure to assist persons in danger.

At the end of a two-year probe, they were cleared of any wrongdoing but the legal saga did not stop there.

A civil case filed by Egyptian tycoon Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s father and the owner of Harrods department store, is ongoing, accusing three photographers of invasion of privacy for taking pictures inside the vehicle.

A small victory came last year when the French appeals court ruled that Fabrice Chassery, Jacques Langevin and Christian Martinez had indeed violated privacy laws, quashing judgments handed down in 2003 and 2004.

The three photographers were fined a symbolic one euro and an appeal is now before the Cour de Cassation.

“They were just doing their job,” lawyer Jean-Louis Pelletier, who represents Chassery in the case, told the news agency.

“They are paid to do this. They are good guys who know the rules and they never had any problems outside of this case.”

The editors of three leading British tabloids this month admitted their share of guilt over Diana’s death, acknowledging that they had helped create an atmosphere in which the paparazzi were in a frenzy.—AFP