Royalty

By Thomas Sancton and Scott Macleod/Paris

In their efforts to compile as exhaustive a record as possible, the two French judges investigating the death of Princess Diana grilled a controversial figure last week: RICHARD TOMLINSON, 35, a former officer of MI6, Britain's foreign-intelligence service. Tomlinson, who was fired by the agency in 1995, spent six months in jail last year for violating Britain's Official Secrets Act by trying to peddle a book critical of MI6.

Tomlinson, who requested the meeting with the judges, related a hodgepodge of allegations, including his suspicion that the driver, Henri Paul, had once been a paid informant of MI6. But according to Tomlinson, the judges seemed most interested in his contention that a free-lance British photographer who covered the royals had regularly briefed MI6 on Diana's doings. The judges are trying to learn the identity of an English-speaking mustachioed photographer who was at the Ritz Hotel the night of the crash, and may have hoped that Tomlinson could shed light on the possibility that an MI6 agent had been following Diana that evening. The judges expect to wrap up their investigation by late October.

--By Thomas Sancton and Scott MacLeod/Paris