Diana's boyfriend Hasnat Khan, the heart surgeon with whom she had a discreet two year relationship which ended just months before her tragic death, has revealed that he believes voicemails left on his phone were hacked as far back as 1996.
The news comes as the phone-hacking scandal took a fresh twist today with claims that there may be an additional 600 victims of the practice at the shuttered News of the World. The new names were handed over by a suspect turned "supergrass".
The revelation about Hasnat Khan comes from friends of the surgeon whom the Princess referred to as Mr Wonderful, speaking to The Daily Telegraph today.
Mr Khan had previously been informed that his voicemails had been hacked in 2007, in the months leading up to the inquest into Diana’s death, when speculation that he might lift the lid on his relationship with Diana was at its peak.
But "sources close to the Pakistani doctor" told the Telegraph that he now thinks he was being hacked in the 1990s when the relationship was active:
The source said: “It is only when Dr Khan started to think back to the time when he was with Diana that it began to occur to him that someone may have been trying to listen in to his messages.“Their friendship was very private and very discreet but he now fears journalists were targeting him in a bid to find out what was going on. He is very angry about it and it just shows goes to show how long ago this activity stretches back.”When Khan first learned that he may have been a victim of hacking last year, he said: “To know that someone has been listening to your private messages it awful. It’s absolutely terrible. It feels as if you have been robbed. I feel really violated. I am very angry.”
Dr Khan met Diana in 1995 when she was visiting the Royal Brompton Hospital where a friend was recovering from heart surgery.They began a two year affair which he ended just months before her tragic death in Paris in August 1997.