Fayed case threatens French press freedom

France's draconian privacy laws, the strictest in any Western democracy, could be tightened yet further if Mohamed al-Fayed succeeds in the latest stage of his tireless campaign to establish blame over the death of his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Last week, in a case brought by the owner of Harrods, a court ordered the trial of three photographers who covered the 1997 crash in which the couple died. French judges will have to decide whether the paparazzi infringed the couple's private space by taking photographs through the windows of the Mercedes they were travelling in.

French lawyers say one precedent has already been established. The singer Michel Sardou successfully took action against a magazine that published a picture of him taken through a car windscreen, a ruling that in effect makes the back seat of a car as private as the inside of a house.

But when photographers Jacques Langevin, of the Sygma-Corbis news agency, Christian Martinez of Angeli and freelance Eric Chassery appear in court, their lawyers will argue the photographs they took on the night of 30 and 31 August 1997 were never published. Many of the photographs are still in police files and others were voluntarily withdrawn from publication by newspapers all over the world after it became clear that Diana had died in the crash in the Alma underpass.

Bernard Dartevelle, Mr Fayed's lawyer, said: ''I am delighted to finally have made some progress and to be able to bring a case. Usually these kinds of cases move three times as fast.''

Legal experts say the prosecution will be on thin ice, not least because the defence will raise issues of press freedom. In particular, Mr Langevin will argue that he arrived at the scene 15 minutes after the crash – which also killed the driver, Henri Paul, and injured bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones – and that he acted as he would at the scene of any accident, while the emergency services did their work.

The photographer was not in the "pack" that followed the Mercedes when it left the Ritz Hotel on its way to Dodi Fayed's flat in western Paris.

Under France's privacy laws, photographers and television crews are expected to obtain written permission before the publication of any image of a person, including someone in a crowd. This is generally ignored, for practical reasons, with picture editors preferring to blank out faces or car registration plates.

Injunctions are often filed against magazines in France before publication, forcing them to publish blank pages featuring a legal text instead of the contentious photograph. Liability is generally seen as being with the publication, not the photographer.

If found guilty, the three photographers named – who took pictures of the couple after they got into the Mercedes – face up to a yearin prison and a fine each of €45,000 (£30,000).

French legal experts said the case will relate only to photographs taken of Dodi Fayed, because Diana's family are not party to the complaint.