Absent Witness

A closed-door hearing next month in Paris into Princess Diana’s death will include her late boyfriend’s father, nine paparazzi under investigation and 10 eyewitnesses - but not bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, the sole survivor of the crash that killed Diana last August. Rees-Jones was invited on an “informational basis” but has declined, judicial sources said. The crash also killed Diana’s boyfriend, Dodi Fayed, and their drunken driver, Henri Paul. Fayed’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed, apparently has backed off his assertion that the crash was part of a plot; he now says the photographers who followed the car probably are to blame. But investigators long have believed it was Paul’s drunken condition and the Mercedes’ excessive speed that probably caused the crash.