Princess Diana wanted to marry a Pak heart-surgeon — Imran

The Sunday Telegraph today reported that Imran Khan’s disclosure about his role as the go-between will discredit claims by Mohamed Fayed, the Egyptian owner of Harrods, that Diana and his son, Dodi, were intending to marry.

In the hour-long programme, former Pakistani cricket captain said his private conversations with Diana in May, 1997, during her visit to Pakistan left him in no doubt of her love for Hasnat Khan and her desire to marry him.

Like other friends of Diana, Imran suggests that “her relationship with Dodi Fayed was a summer romance, possibly a calculated tactic to make Khan jealous and persuade him to marry her”.

Imran says the heart-surgeon, who lives in Chelsea, is shy, dignified and reserved.

“These factors must have attracted her,” he said, adding “She had decided he was the man she wanted to live with.”

When Diana and Dodi Fayed were killed in a car-crash in August 1997, Imran had already made plans to fly to London, and intended to meet Hasnat.

Having married Jemima, the British daughter of late financier Sir James Goldsmith, Imran said he understood the difficulties of a mixed marriage.

“I had it in my mind that I was going to talk to him. At least to find out what was the reason (for his reluctance to marry her)…. because may be there was some reason that she wasn’t aware of,” Imran said.

“I could speak to Hasnat because having married someone from outside my culture, if there was something that could be cleared or some advice that could be given, then may be I would be able to help.”

Only the death of Diana ended his mission as the go-between. “Before that could happen, that tragic incident took place,” he says.

Media reports today said even during her “summer fling” with Dodi, Diana was in touch with Hasnat’s family telling them not to read anything significant into the relationship.

According to Sunday Telegraph, the programme suggests that Hasnat had ended their relationship in July because he disliked the media attention showered on Diana.

Also his strict Muslim family found it impossible to accept a divorced Western woman into the fold, even if she was a British princess.

Hasnat (40), who works with Sir Magdi Yacoub at the Royal Brompton Hospital in Middlesex, has never spoken publicly about his relationship with the Princess.