Diana Crash: Put It on the Ritz

PARIS: So you thought the wrangling over Princess Diana's tragic death was over? It's just getting warmed up. Former bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, the sole survivor of the crash that killed the princess in August 1997, launched a lawsuit Wednesday against the Ritz Hotel and the Etoile-Limousine car service for "endangering the lives of others." As TIME reported in August, Rees-Jones and fellow bodyguard Kes Wingfield consider the hotel largely responsible for the tragic accident. Although Rees-Jones is still plagued by amnesia and doesn't remember what happened that fateful night, Wingfield told crash investigators that he requested six extra bodyguards and was ignored.

For his part, Ritz owner Mohammed Al-Fayed seems to have decided Rees-Jones and Wingfield themselves are guilty -- for not ordering a backup car or making sure the princess was buckled up in the back. "They moved away from the rules. They let me down," he told TIME. Now he and Rees-Jones will likely face each other in French court -- trading barbs over who was responsible for Henri Paul, the Mercedes driver who was found to be legally drunk. Given that Paul was the Ritz security chief, it doesn't look good for Al-Fayed. Then again, the spectacle of Diana's bodyguard doing legal battle with Dodi's grieving father doesn't do much for the princess's memory.