Fayed a distraction, Diana inquest reveals

LONDON, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Princess Diana and a Pakistani heart surgeon reportedly decided against marriage due to cultural differences and broke up months before her death.

Dr. Hasnat Khan thought the marriage would last less than a year, his father, Abdul Rasheed Khan, told the Sunday Telegraph.

"We are culturally so different from each other. She is from Venus and I am from Mars. If it ever happened, it would be like a marriage from two different planets," he was quoted by family members as saying.

Khan and Diana had a two-year relationship beginning in 1995.

The inquest into Diana's death continued last week with testimony from a close friend, Rosa Monckton, who said Diana had no plans to marry Dodi Fayed, who died along with the princess in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Monckton said Diana saw her relationship with Fayed as a distraction because she was so "deeply upset and hurt" by the break-up with Khan, the Telegraph said.

"It was clear to me she was really missing Hasnat and I think Dodi was a distraction from the hurt she felt from the break-up," she said at the inquest.