is it true ??
LONDON (AFP) - Princess Diana did not consider Dodi Fayed as "the one" she would marry, and was still yearning for a former boyfriend she had planned to wed, her former butler said Monday.
Paul Burrell told the inquest into her death that Diana had wanted to marry Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, with whom she split shortly before her brief relationship with Fayed ended in tragedy in a car crash in August 1997.
In eagerly-awaited testimony, Burrell said Diana's relationship with Fayed was "exciting" for the princess, who had divorced from Prince Charles in 1996.
"It was very fresh, new and exciting," he told the High Court in London, packed for one of the most high-profile witnesses since the six-month inquest into the deaths of Diana and Fayed opened in October.
But asked by lawyer Ian Burnett: "By that stage had you any sense from the princess that... to use a hackneyed phrase that has appeared in so many media reports, Dodi was 'the one'?" he replied: "No, I didn't have that impression."
Fayed and driver Henri Paul were killed instantly in the Paris car crash, while Diana died from internal injuries a few hours later.
Fayed's father Mohammed Al Fayed, the owner of plush London department store Harrods, claims they were killed by a British establishment conspiracy to prevent Diana marrying a Muslim and having his child.
Burrell also denied that a ring Fayed bought shortly before their doomed last evening together signified there were wedding plans. "It wasn't an engagement ring, it was a friendship band," he said.
The former butler said Diana had been much more serious about Khan.
"The princess seriously contemplated marriage with Khan. She asked me if it was possible to arrange a private marriage between them. Plans were being made in Kensington Palace for Hasnat to have his own rooms," he said.
Their relationship ended in mid-July 1997, and she headed off for a holiday with Fayed in the south of France. But "the princess was still burning a candle for Doctor Khan," said Burrell.
Rosa Monckton, a close friend of Diana's, suggested that the princess had been "deeply upset and hurt" when Khan broke off the relationship they had tried hard to keep secret in mid-1997.
"She was very much in love with him... She hoped that they would be able to have a future together... She wanted to marry him," she testified last month.
There has been speculation that Khan, who began a two-year romance with the princess in 1995, would give evidence either in person or via videolink to the inquest in London, which is seeking to determine exactly how and why Diana died.
Khan, 48 -- reported to have been nicknamed "Mister Wonderful" by the princess -- said at the weekend that he did not plan to give evidence.
"I will act on my lawyer's advice. I will do exactly what the law requires. If the lawyers told me I had to go, I would go, definitely. I don't have anything to add," he told The Mail on Sunday newspaper from his home in Pakistan.
ONCE UPON A TIME AGO...A permanent memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed is pictured in the Harrods store in London, in August 2006. Princess Diana did not consider Dodi as "the one" she would marry, and was still yearning for a former boyfriend she had planned to wed, her former butler has said.
(AFP/File/John D McHugh)
Princess Diana's butler and confidant Paul Burrell poses for photographer during a lunch break at the coroner's inquest into the death the late Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed at the High Court in London, Monday Jan. 14, 2008. Princess Diana gave no indication that she intended to marry Dodi Fayed and made no arrangements to announce an engagement before she died, her butler testified Monday at a coroner's inquest. Burrell said that if an announcement had been planned - as Fayed's father claims - he believes Diana would have put arrangements in place.
(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Mohamed Al Fayed, the father of Dodi Fayed, arrives to attend the coroner's inquest into the death of his son and the late Princess Diana at the High Court in London, Monday Jan. 14, 2008. Princess Diana's butler and confidant Paul Burrell was to testify Monday at the coroner's inquest into her death and the death of her boyfriend Dodi Fayed.
(AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
ONCE UPON A TIME AGO...
A portrait of Princess Diana is placed amongst red roses outside Kensington Palace in 2005. Hasnat khan -- a Pakistani heart surgeon whom friends of Diana said she wanted to marry -- will not give evidence at the coroner's inquest into her death.
(AFP/File/Alessandro Abbonizio)
SWEET HONEST RESPECTED LADY...
Princess Diana arrives at the Royal Geographical Society for a speech on the dangers of landmines throughout the world in this June, 1997 file photo. Diana's former lover, heart specialist Hasnat Khan, has broken his silence a decade after they broke up and confessed that her death still haunts him.
REUTERS/Ian Waldie
Queen Elizabeth II looks on as her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, shakes hands with New Zealand mountaineering legend Edmund Hillary during a garden reception in Auckland in 2002. The queen has led Britain in tributes to Hillary, the first man to conquer Mount Everest, as public figures and fellow adventurers hailed him as a hero and an inspiration.
(AFP/File/Torsten Blackwood)
