The man who will decide the fate of Princess Diana's tormentors sat in a first-floor office at the Palace of Justice yesterday behind a foot-high pile of transcripts. Sunlight filtered through the chestnut trees outside, and Judge Herve Stephan was grinning. The public prosecutor had just put the hottest legal case in the world - the investigation into the deaths of Princess Diana, her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, and their driver - in his hands. It was the kind of career boost that any ambitious young judge would welcome.
One at a time, the six bedraggled photographers and a motorcyclist for the Gamma photographic agency were brought into the functional little room with its plain white lampshade and the filing cabinet in the corner.
When their legal detention expired after midnight yesterday morning, they had been escorted through hidden corridors from the Brigade Criminelle to the depott in the Palace of Justice - a basement prison so inhumane that it has been singled out for criticism by the Council of Europe. By the time they were asked to sit down on the black vinyl chair in front of Judge Stephan's desk, each had spent 60 hours in solitary confinement, without bathing or shaving, with no access to newspapers or radios, their lawyers the only contact with the outside world.
In his short-sleeved baby-blue shirt, the slim, fair-haired and sun-bronzed judge - he is in his 40s - seemed to epitomise the French establishment which turned on the paparazzi when Princess Diana died. The prosecutor had requested investigation on only one charge for all seven - that of failure to assist a person in danger. But Judge Stephan added the charge of manslaughter.
He began with those considered least incriminated, Nickolas Arsov, of Sipa photographic agency, and Jacques Langevin, of Sygma. He slowly worked his way through the documents, through the cases of freelance Laszlo Veres - who still limps from an accident he had during a high-speed celebrity chase - Serge Arnal, of the Stills paparazzi agency, Stephane Darmon, the motorcyclist from Gamma.
He finished his indictments with Christian Martinez, of the paparazzi agency Angeli, and the unfortunately-named Romualdo Rat, from Gamma. Mr Martinez and Mr Rat were the first to arrive at the scene of the car crash. The police claim they impeded rescue work, and the prosecutor requested that the two go to jail while the investigation is carried out. The others were released without condition, but Mr Martinez and Mr Rat were required to post £11,111 in bail each and were forbidden to leave France or to work as photographers.
Lawyers for Mr Arsov and Mr Langevin stressed that they were "normal photographers" - not paparazzi. According to his lawyer, Mr William Bourdon, Mr Arsov had followed the decoy car - not the Mercedes carrying Princess Diana - away from the Ritz Hotel, then went home before hearing of the accident and rushing to the tunnel.
Mr Langevin is a news photographer who became famous for his dramatic photographs of Tiananmen Square. He had the bad luck to be on duty at the Sygma agency on the night of Princess Diana's death.
"Langevin has nothing to do with this whole business," the director of Sygma, Mr Hubert Henrotte, said. He had merely taken a few posed shots of Princess Diana at the Ritz, Mr Henrotte claimed, and was driving to a dinner when he came upon the accident seven minutes after it happened.
Despite the severity of the charges for which they are being investigated, it is far from certain that the photographers will be convicted, or even tried. In France, the mise en examen - putting under investigation - is a liberally used legal device which means only that there is a suspicion of crime.
"The judge cast his net very wide," Mr Bourdon explained. "He's starting with the maximum and he'll sort it out later."
There was a widespread feeling in the Palace of Justice yesterday that Judge Stephan had caved in to public pressure. In a cafe across the boulevard from the courthouse, a magistrate who judges cases involving violent crimes told The Irish Times: "The case for manslaughter doesn't stand up. This is for the benefit of the public, and France's relations with Britain."
