Diana photographers 'not to blame'

As a British inquest jury finds Princess Diana was unlawfully killed by driver Henri Paul and paparazzi pursuing her car, one of the photographers arrested on the night of her death in Paris speaks to the BBC.

Laslo Veres does not speak easily to British journalists.

He feels they have been too quick to blame the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, on the paparazzi - photographers like himself - on that fateful August night.

With some reluctance he agrees to meet me in the front room of his home in a quiet cul-de-sac on the Buda side of the river in Budapest.

By origin a Hungarian from the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, he has spent the last 35 years of his professional life pursuing the rich and famous.

On 31 August 1997 he was at the front entrance of the Ritz hotel in Paris, waiting for Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed to leave.

'Competition atmosphere'

The photographers had split into two groups, he said, because Henri Paul, the princess's bodyguard, had been teasing them: sending decoy cars out, with no-one in them, then coming out to chat to photographers.

one-nil," the bodyguard quipped, after one such wild goose chase.

At first I thought she was moving. Then I realised it was the firemen, trying to lift her. But she was still alive Laslo Veres

That fed a competition atmosphere between the bodyguard, who would later take the wheel of the car, and the photographers, angling for a picture of the couple.

At some point an employee of the hotel came out to tell the photographers at the front that the car had gone.

He was packing up his cameras to go home, Mr Veres told me, when his phone rang.

One of the photographers from the back entrance of the hotel, who had succeeded in following the car, rang to tell him it had crashed.

He reached the tunnel about 10 minutes later, parked his bike and started taking photographs.

To one side, doctors were trying to revive Dodi Al Fayed. A doctor and two firemen were trying to cut Princess Diana from the wreckage.

"At first I thought she was moving," he said. "Then I realised it was the firemen, trying to lift her. But she was still alive."

Inquest witness

Mr Veres had taken between 10 and 15 photos when the police arrived, and he and seven other photographers on the scene were detained for several days.

He gave evidence, as a witness, at the first inquest in Paris. But he was not invited to London to give evidence in the British inquest.

"You can't blame the photographers for what happened," he insists.

"You don't get pictures by sitting around and waiting. If someone is famous you go after them. You don't disturb them, but you do stay with them."

The biggest mistake that night, he continues, was that the couple let the bodyguard, Henri Paul, drive their car, though he had obviously been drinking.

Driver Henri Paul had taunted the paparazzi, says Laslo Veres

But the British inquest had just found the paparazzi to blame, as well as the driver, I reminded him.

"Of course he went faster than he would have, if he had not been chased by the paparazzi," Mr Veres told me.

"But a professional driver would not have tried to shake off the photographers in the centre of Paris, but out on the ring road, the Rue Peripherique, where their scooters would have been no match for a powerful car."

He feels sorry, very sorry that the princess died, he says, but insists that he and his colleagues that night were not to blame.

But he's glad to be out of the business.

"Young photographers nowadays behave like commandos," he concludes.

"There's no skill left in the trade.'

Now he photographs flowers. And interiors of houses.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7337734.stm

 

*英법원 “다이애나 사망 음모는 없어”

배심원단 “운전 과실” 평결… 윌리엄-해리 왕손 “동의”

다이애나(사진) 전 영국 왕세자비의 사고사에 음모는 개입되지 않았다는 영국 법원의 평결이 사고 발생 이후 11년 만에 나왔다.

영국 런던고등법원 배심원단은 7일 다이애나와 연인 도디 알파예드의 죽음은 두 사람의 운전사와 이 차를 추적하는 파파라치의 운전 과실에서 비롯됐다는 평결을 내렸다고 가디언 등 현지 언론이 보도했다.

11명의 배심원단은 지난 6개월간 650만 파운드(약 126억 원)를 들여 전 해외정보국장, 왕실 집사, 다이애나의 친지와 전 애인 등 278명을 법정에 불러 증언을 청취한 후 이날 9 대 2로 이같이 결론지었다.

배심원단은 평결을 내리기 직전 22시간 동안 마지막으로 치열한 토론을 벌였으나 판사가 애초 요구한 만장일치에는 이르지 못하고 다수결로 평결을 채택했다.

이번 평결은 엘리자베스 2세 여왕의 남편인 필립 공을 포함한 영국 왕실과 정보기관이 다이애나를 살해했다는 항간의 음모설을 부인하는 것이다.

다이애나와 알파예드는 1997년 프랑스 파리 리츠호텔에서 메르세데스 승용차를 타고 나간 뒤 자동차와 오토바이를 탄 파파라치들에게 쫓기다 알마 지하차도에서 13번째 기둥을 들이받고 숨졌다.

배심원단은 “사고는 메르세데스와 이를 뒤따르던 파파라치의 고속 질주, 메르세데스 운전사 앙리 폴의 음주 상태에서의 판단 미숙으로 일어났다”며 “다이애나와 알파예드가 안전벨트를 착용하지 않은 것과 차량이 하필 시멘트 기둥을 들이받은 것도 이들이 사망에 이르게 된 요인”이라고 밝혔다.

배심원단은 그간 다이애나의 임신 가능성, 다이애나와 무슬림인 알파예드 사이에 아기가 태어나지 못하도록 살해했다는 주장 등 예민한 문제를 자세히 검토했으나 이를 입증할 만한 증거를 발견하지 못했다.

이에 앞서 프랑스와 영국 경찰은 다이애나의 죽음이 음모에 의한 살인이 아닌 비극적인 사고사라고 결론을 내린 바 있다.

한편 다이애나의 아들인 윌리엄과 해리 왕손은 성명을 통해 배심원단의 판정에 동의한다면서 증거를 철저히 검증해준 데 대해 배심원단에 감사한다고 밝혔다.

파리=송평인 특파원 pisong@donga.com