'Di ended romance, not me': Dr Hasnat Khan

London, March 4 : The man whom Princess Diana described as the "love of her life" has revealed that she dumped him for Dodi Al Fayed.

Pakistani heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan contradicted his earlier claims that he was the one to end the two-year affair because he could not cope with the publicity attached to Diana's celebrity status.

However, in a written statement to the inquest into the princess' death, Dr Khan, said that it was Diana who broke off the alliance after returning from a holiday with the family of Mohamed Al Fayed.

Dr Khan revealed that after the vacation he suspected that Diana had "met someone else from the Mohamed al Fayed contingent".

"I did not know who it was. It could have been a bodyguard or anyone. At a second meeting, she said it was all over between us, but she denied there was anyone else," the Telegraph quoted him, as saying in the statement.

Dr Khan said that he first became aware of Diana's relationship with Dodi when he read about their deaths in the Paris underpass.

Dr Khan met Diana in the summer of 1995 through her interest in the life-saving surgery being carried out at London's Royal Brompton Hospital.

He described one occasion when the couple were in a pub and Diana had wanted to order drinks at the bar because it was something she had never done.

The jury heard the couple went on to have a normal sexual relationship and Dr Khan had "no reason to believe" Diana was ever unfaithful.

He said he had often stayed at Kensington Palace and had met princes William and Harry.

Dr Khan said he and the princess had discussed the subject of marriage, but believed the press intrusion would make his life a nightmare.

He said he would not be able to live a normal life and, if they ever had children together, he would never be able to take them anywhere.

The only way they could live anything near a normal life would be to move to his home country of Pakistan, where the press did not bother people, he told Diana.

Thus she went to Pakistan and talked to Jemima Khan, then married to cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan.

"Later I got the impression she did not consider living there a possibility," he said.

Dr Khan also dismissed the conspiracy theories around her death.

He said the Princess was concerned about her personal safety but "not paranoid" about it.

"I think it was just a terrible accident, but I am very surprised she was not wearing a seatbelt. She was always very particular about putting her seatbelt on," he said.

He also revealed that Diana was "always very complimentary about the Queen", and although she did not like the Duke of Edinburgh, she was not afraid of him.

He said that he believed Diana finally realised Dodi "could give her all the things I could not", including security.

He added that he thought it unlikely Diana would have agreed to marry Dodi within only four weeks of getting to know him and expressed surprise at Mohamed Fayed's claim that she was pregnant because she had always been very particular about taking contraceptive pills during their relationship.

ANI