KEY POINTS:
Dodi Fayed's former butler claimed yesterday that he walked in to see his boss down on one knee touching Diana, Princess of Wales, on the belly just hours before they were killed.
Rene Delorm told the couple's inquest in London that Dodi had told him earlier that night to prepare some champagne as he was going to propose to Diana.
Speaking by video-link from his home in Los Angeles, Delorm also claimed he once spoke to Dodi of the possibility that he might become the stepfather of the future king of England.
Delorm said he had seen Dodi and Diana going into a jeweller's shop in Monte Carlo earlier in the summer of 1997.
The court heard that Delorm was among a party who returned to Dodi's flat in Paris on the afternoon of August 30, 1997, having been on a cruise on the al-Fayed family's yacht, the Jonikal.
He said Dodi and the Princess paid a visit to the Villa Windsor, the one-time home of the former king, Edward VIII, and his wife, Wallis, which was on a long-term lease to Dodi's father, Mohamed al-Fayed.
The couple then fought through a crowd of paparazzi as they arrived at Dodi's flat in the centre of Paris, where Delorm let them in.
He said the couple had been emotionally drained because of the behaviour of the paparazzi, but soon relaxed.
Shortly afterwards he claimed that Dodi had come up to him in the kitchen of the flat.
"He said, 'Rene, have some champagne ready because when I come back I'm going to propose to the Princess'.
"The next thing he did, he reached into his pocket, he took out a box and I saw the ring.
"I couldn't believe - why I couldn't believe? - because all these years sometimes I used to say, 'Why don't you get married, you are a good-looking man ... you are smart, you are rich, all you need is a family', and he said nothing more.
"And here I am standing in front of a man who was going to propose to the Princess and I was very excited because that was what was missing in his life."
Delorm went on to say he had looked in on the couple regularly and claimed he had seen them dancing in the apartment.
He said he had seen Dodi kneeling in front of the Princess.
"He was on his knee and they were talking, I saw them like this, I went back and he had his hand around his belly."
Jonathan Hough, counsel to the inquest, interrupted: "His belly?"
Delorm continued, unflustered: "Her belly - what that meant I have no idea."
But he added that he had later heard rumours that the Princess had been pregnant.
Delorm wrote a book about his time with Dodi after his death but did not include his claim about seeing Dodi touching Diana's belly in it.
The court heard that he first made the claim when interviewed by officers from Scotland Yard some years later.
Yesterday Delorm said: "The officer of Scotland told me, 'Why is that not in your book?' and I said I didn't want to take advantage of a situation I didn't know. It was a rumour. How can I tell she was pregnant?"
Asked by Mr Hough whether Dodi had ever spoken of his plan to propose to Diana before the night in question, he said: "One night we went to see a movie in London - Airforce One. It was the Princess, Dodi Fayed, the security guard and myself.
"On our way back, we dropped off the Princess at her home and we went to the apartment.
"And as we were moving to the apartment in the elevator it was the first time that I initiated a conversation.
"I looked at him, I said to him, 'Mr Fayed, if things will be going as well as they are now you might end up being the stepfather of the future king'.
"He smiled at me and he said, 'Yes'.
"And I said, 'Knowing you - how private you are - you will not be private any more', and he said, 'I know that's true'.
"When I told him that, he never said, 'No, no, no there's no marriage'."
- AP
Driver Henri Paul 'in regular contact with French intelligence service'
The driver who died with Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed was in regular contact with the French intelligence service, an executive of the Ritz Hotel said yesterday.
Claude Roulet, assistant to the president of the Ritz, said driver Henri Paul had put him in touch with the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) in planning for a visit by an important Russian diplomat.
Paul was not a regular driver, but was deputy head of security at the hotel.
Asked if it was Paul's job to help police with inquiries about special guests, Roulet said: "Usually it is the task of the security chief but Henri Paul had very good contacts with the French police so maybe those contacts meant that he was contacted more than his chief."
Mohamed Al Fayed, who asserts that the Princess and his son were targets of a plot, has claimed that Paul was in the pay of French and British intelligence agencies. He has also suggested that the plan for the couple to leave the hotel by the back entrance with Paul driving was concocted by intelligence agencies who directed Paul.
Paul is a key figure in the inquest. French and British police concluded that Paul had had too much to drink and was driving too fast before the collision with a concrete pillar in a road tunnel. Al Fayed has denied that Paul was drunk, claiming that blood tests were faked.
- AP
