Paris court fines photographer over Diana photos

PARIS: A Paris appeals court on Thursday convicted British celebrity photographer Jason Fraser of invading the privacy of the late Princess Diana by snapping her on a yacht kissing her boyfriend Dodi Fayed.

It overturned the not guilty verdict made by another court in 2006 and fined Fraser, as well as the publisher of the France Dimanche weekly which published the pictures in 1997, 3,000 euros (4,300 dollars) each.

Fraser, 41, was also ordered to pay Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, 5,000 euros in damages. The convicted men were also told to pay him 3,000 euros towards his legal fees.

It was Mohamed Al Fayed, the Egyptian-born billionaire owner of London's upscale Harrods department store and the Ritz Hotel in Paris, who took the case to court.

It revolved around some of the last paparazzi photos taken of Diana and Fayed before the couple died in a high-speed Paris car crash in August 1997 that investigators blamed on their driver, who was also killed.