NEW YORK, Oct 24: Princess Diana was “desperately” in love with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan when she died and not Dodi Fayed, who was killed in a car accident with her, Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell has told ABC television.

“It was Hasnat,” Burrell told ABC interviewer Barbara Walters in an interview to be broadcast Friday.

Asked whether Diana had wanted to marry Khan, with whom she had a relationship before Fayed, Burrell responded: “She wanted desperately to, yes.”

Burrell, once described by Diana as her “rock”, has written a book about his time working for the princess. Excerpts serialised in a British newspaper ahead of publication next week have triggered headlines with revelations that Diana believed there was a plot to kill her.

Diana and Dodi Fayed died in a car crash in a Paris underpass on August 31, 1997.

The princess met Fayed after her relationship with Khan, which Burrell said the surgeon had broken off.

“They were two very like-minded people ...two people who wanted to go out into the world and help others ...two humanitarians,” Burrell said in the interview.

“I think there were too many complications on both sides,” he added. “The princess always said she came with a lot of baggage.”—AFP