Dodi Fayed was making plans to marry his girlfriend Diana, princess of Wales, less than two weeks before their fatal 1997 car crash, a witness on Thursday told the inquest into the couple's death. Franz Klein, president of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, told how Fayed spoke to him by telephone to discuss his plans for an engagement ring and where they would live after the wedding.
Fayed called him on August 18 or 19 and said he and Diana would be in Paris at the end of the month.
"I remember very well, he called me and he said 'Frank, I just passed by a jewellers' shop,' he pointed out it was Van Cleef, he said 'I want to buy some jewellery, I'm going to get engaged'," he told the London inquest.
In a second conversation on August 29 they discussed the Villa Windsor in Paris, a former royal residence. "He informed me he was going to Paris the following day," he said.
"He did not mention the princess by name but he did tell me that he was going to stay in Paris, to live, he told me he was going to move to the Villa Windsor with his girlfriend and he told me, all the time in English, that they were going to get married."
Diana, Fayed and chauffeur Henri Paul were all killed in the crash in a Paris underpass after they left the Ritz Hotel in the early hours of August 31, 1997.