LONDON (AFP) — Princess Diana's former butler was to give more testimony Tuesday at the inquest into her death, a day after revealing that her mother had called her a "whore" for dating Muslim men.
Paul Burrell gave five hours of evidence on Monday at the inquest into her death in an August 1997 car crash in Paris along with Dodi Fayed, whose father claims there was a plot to kill them to stop her marrying a Muslim.
"She called the princess a whore and she said that she was messing around with 'effing Muslim men' and she was disgraceful and said some very nasty things," he told the inquest, referring to Diana's mother Frances Shand Kydd, who died in 2004.
Burrell also said that Diana did not consider Fayed as "the one" she would marry and was still yearning for a former Pakistani boyfriend she had planned to wed.
Diana had wanted to marry Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, with whom she split shortly before her brief relationship with Fayed ended in tragedy, Burrell said.
Fayed and driver Henri Paul were killed instantly in the 1997 crash, while Diana died from internal injuries a few hours later.
Fayed's father Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of plush London department store Harrods, claims they were killed in a British establishment conspiracy.
In eagerly-awaited testimony, Burrell said Monday that Diana's relationship with Fayed was "exciting" for the princess, who had divorced from Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, 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'?" Burrell replied: "No, I didn't have that impression."
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