Mohamed Al-Fayed (; arz, محمد الفايد ; born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian-born businessman whose residence and chief business interests have been in the United Kingdom since the late 1960s. His business interests include ownership of
Hôtel Ritz Paris
The Ritz Paris is a hotel in central Paris, overlooking the Place Vendôme in the city's 1st arrondissement. A member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing group, the Ritz Paris is ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world.
T ...
and formerly
Harrods department store
Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other ...
and
Fulham F.C.
Fulham Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, London, which compete in the . They have played home games at Craven Cottage since 1896, other than a two-year period spent at Loftus Road whilst Craven Cottage unde ...
, both in London. In November 2022, Fayed's wealth was estimated at US$1.9 billion, ranking his wealth at no. 1,512 in the world.
Fayed's son
Dodi, from his first marriage to
Samira Khashoggi from 1954 to 1956, was in a romantic relationship with
Diana, Princess of Wales, when they both
died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Fayed married Finnish socialite and former model
Heini Wathén in 1985, with whom he also has four children: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla, and
Omar
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb ( ar, عمر بن الخطاب, also spelled Omar, ) was the second Rashidun caliph, ruling from August 634 until his assassination in 644. He succeeded Abu Bakr () as the second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate o ...
.
Early life
Fayed was born in
Roshdy,
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
, Egypt, the eldest son of an Egyptian primary school teacher from
Asyut
AsyutAlso spelled ''Assiout'' or ''Assiut'' ( ar, أسيوط ' , from ' ) is the capital of the modern Asyut Governorate in Egypt. It was built close to the ancient city of the same name, which is situated nearby. The modern city is located at ...
. His year of birth has been disputed.
His website, alfayed.com,
[domain name verification: ] used to claim he was born in 1933,
[Revision history of Biography in www.alfayed.com
*
*
*] but the
Department of Trade found his year of birth was 1929.
The website was changed from "1933" to "1929" in 2011.
His brothers Ali and Salah have been his business colleagues.
Fayed was married from 1954 to 1956 to
Samira Khashoggi. He worked with his wife's brother, Saudi Arabian arms dealer and businessman
Adnan Khashoggi
Adnan Khashoggi ( ar, عدنان خاشقجي, ‘Adnān Khāshuqjī; 25 July 1935 – 6 June 2017) was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle. He was estimated to have had a peak net worth of ...
.
Sometime in the early 1970s, he began using "Al-Fayed" rather than "Fayed". His brothers Ali and Salah followed suit at the time of their acquisition of the
House of Fraser in the 1980s, though by the late 1980s, both had reverted to calling themselves simply "Fayed". Some have assumed that Fayed's addition of "Al-" to his name was to imply aristocratic origins, like "de" in French or "von" in German, though ''Al-'' does not have the same social connotations in Arabic.
This assumption led to ''
Private Eye'' magazine nicknaming him the "Phoney Pharaoh".
United Kingdom
Early business dealings
![Mohammed Al-Fayed, Madame Tussauds](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Mohammed_Al-Fayed%2C_Madame_Tussauds.jpg)
Fayed and his brothers founded a shipping company in Egypt before moving its headquarters to Genoa, Italy with offices in London.
Around 1964 he entered a close relationship with Haitian leader
François Duvalier, known as 'Papa Doc', and became interested in the construction of a Fayed-Duvalier oil refinery in
Haiti. He also associated with the geologist
George de Mohrenschildt
George Sergius de Mohrenschildt ( ru , Георгий Сергеевич де Мореншильд; April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was an American petroleum geologist, professor, and known CIA informant. De Mohrenschildt is best known for havi ...
. Fayed terminated his stay in Haiti six months later when a sample of "crude oil" provided by Haitian associates proved to be low-grade
molasses.
Fayed then moved to England, where he lived in
central London.
In the mid-1960s, he met the ruler of Dubai,
Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum
Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum ( ar, ٱلـشَّـيْـخ رَاشِـد بِـن سَـعِـيْـد آل مَـكْـتُـوْم, Ash-Shaykh Rāshid bin Sa`īd Āl Maktūm; 11 June 1912 – 7 October 1990) was the vice president ...
, who entrusted him with helping transform
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
, where he set up IMS (International Marine Services) in 1968. Fayed introduced British companies like the
Costain Group
Costain Group plc is a British construction and engineering company headquartered in Maidenhead, England. Founded in 1865, its history includes extensive housebuilding and mining activities, but it later focused on civil engineering and commerci ...
(of which he became a director and 30%
shareholder),
Bernard Sunley & Sons
Bernard Sunley & Sons was a British property development company.
It was founded in 1940 as Bernard Sunley & Son by Bernard Sunley (1910–1964) who "ranked alongside the most successful property developers of the 1950s property boom".
The compan ...
and
Taylor Woodrow
Taylor Woodrow was one of the largest housebuilding and general construction companies in Britain. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until its merger with rival George Wimpey to create Ta ...
to the emirate to carry out the required construction work.
He also became a financial adviser to the then
Sultan of Brunei Omar Ali Saifuddien III
Sultan Sir Omar Ali Saifuddien Sa'adul Khairi Waddien ( Jawi: ; 23 September 1914 – 7 September 1986) was the 28th Sultan of Brunei, reigning from 4 June 1950 until his abdication from the throne on 5 October 1967.
He was also Brunei's fir ...
in 1966.
Fayed briefly joined the board of the mining conglomerate
Lonrho
Lonrho is a London-based conglomerate that was established in 1998 as Lonrho Africa plc. It is engaged in multiple business sectors in Africa, mainly agribusiness, infrastructure, transport, hospitality and support services.
History
Lonrho ...
in 1975 but left after a disagreement.
In 1979, he bought
The Ritz hotel in Paris, France for US$30 million.
In 1984, Fayed and his brothers purchased a 30% stake in
House of Fraser, a group that included the London store
Harrods, from
Roland 'Tiny' Rowland, the head of Lonrho. In 1985, he and his brothers bought the remaining 70% of House of Fraser for £615m. Rowland claimed that the Fayed brothers lied about their background and wealth and he put pressure on the government to investigate them. A
Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) inquiry into the Fayeds was launched. The DTI's subsequent report was critical, but no action was taken against the Fayeds, and while many believed the contents of the report, others felt it was politically motivated.
In 1998, Rowland accused Fayed of stealing papers and jewels from his Harrods
safe deposit box
A safe deposit box, also known as a safety deposit box, is an individually secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions. Safe deposit ...
. Fayed was arrested, but the charges were dropped. Rowland died in 1998. Fayed settled the dispute with a payment to his widow; he also sued the
Metropolitan Police for false arrest in 2002, but lost the case.
In 1994, House of Fraser went public, but Fayed retained the private ownership of Harrods.
He re-launched the humorous magazine ''
Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
'' in 1996 but it folded again in 2002.
Al-Fayed unsuccessfully applied for
British citizenship
British nationality law prescribes the conditions under which a person is recognised as being a national of the United Kingdom. The six different classes of British nationality each have varying degrees of civil and political rights, due to the ...
twice, in 1994 and 1999.
It was suggested that his feud with Rowland contributed to the first refusal.
Cash-for-questions
In 1994, in what became known as the
cash-for-questions affair
The "cash-for-questions affair" was a political scandal of the 1990s in the United Kingdom.
It began in October 1994 when ''The Guardian'' newspaper alleged that London's most successful parliamentary lobbyist, Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates ...
, Fayed revealed the names of MPs he had paid to ask questions in Parliament on his behalf, but who had failed to declare their fees. It saw
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
MPs
Neil Hamilton and
Tim Smith Tim, Timothy or Timmy Smith may refer to:
Musicians
* T. V. Smith (born 1956), British singer and songwriter
*Tim Smith (Cardiacs) (1961–2020), English singer-songwriter and frontman of Cardiacs
*Timmy Trumpet (born 1982), Australian DJ and prod ...
leave the government in disgrace, and a
Committee on Standards in Public Life
The Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom Government, established by John Major in 1994 to advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards of public life. It promotes a code o ...
established to prevent such corruption occurring again. Fayed also revealed that cabinet minister
Jonathan Aitken
Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a British author, Church of England priest, former prisoner and former Conservative Party politician. Beginning his career in journalism, he was elected to Parliament in 1974 (serving un ...
stayed for free at the Ritz Hotel in Paris at the same time as a group of Saudi arms dealers, leading to Aitken's subsequent unsuccessful libel case and imprisonment for perjury. During this period in 1988, Al-Fayed's spokesman was
Michael Cole, a former BBC journalist, although Cole's PR work for Al-Fayed did not cease in 1998.
Hamilton lost a subsequent libel action against Al-Fayed in December 1999 and a subsequent appeal against the verdict in December 2000. The former MP has always denied that he was paid by Al-Fayed for asking questions in Parliament. Hamilton's libel action related to a
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
''
Dispatches'' documentary broadcast on 16 January 1997 in which Al-Fayed made claims that the MP had received up to £110,000 in cash and other gratuities for asking parliamentary questions. Hamilton's basis for his appeal was that the original verdict was invalid because Al-Fayed had paid £10,000 for documents stolen from the dustbins of Hamilton's legal representatives by
Benjamin Pell
Benjamin Pell (also known as "Benji the Binman", born December 1963) is a British man who is known for having raked through the dustbins of law firms representing prominent people in search of incriminating or compromising documents that he could ...
.
In 2003, Fayed moved from
Surrey, UK to Switzerland, alleging a breach in an agreement with
the British tax authority. In 2005, he moved back to Britain, saying that he "regards Britain as home".
He moored a yacht called the ''
Sokar'' in
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
prior to selling it in 2014.
Sale of Harrods
After denials that Harrods was for sale, it was sold to
Qatar Holdings
The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA; ar, جهاز قطر للإستثمار) is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In 2021 ...
, the
sovereign wealth fund
A sovereign wealth fund (SWF), sovereign investment fund, or social wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as ...
of the country of
Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...
, on 10 May 2010. A fortnight previously, Fayed had stated that "People approach us from
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, Qatar. Fair enough. But I
put two fingers up to them. It is not for sale. This is not
Marks and Spencer or
Sainsbury's
J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales.
Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...
. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca."
Harrods was sold for £1.5 billion. Fayed later revealed in an interview that he decided to sell Harrods following the difficulty in getting his
dividend
A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, it is able to pay a portion of the profit as a dividend to shareholders. Any amount not distributed is taken to be re-i ...
approved by the trustee of the Harrods pension fund. Fayed said "I'm here every day, I can't take my profit because I have to take a permission of those bloody idiots. I say is this right? Is this logic? Somebody like me? I run a business and I need to take bloody fucking trustee's permission to take my profit".
Fayed was appointed honorary chairman of Harrods, a position he was scheduled to hold for at least six months.
Scotland real estate
In 1972, Fayed purchased the Balnagown estate in
Easter Ross
Easter Ross ( gd, Ros an Ear) is a loosely defined area in the east of Ross, Highland, Scotland.
The name is used in the constituency name Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, which is the name of both a British House of Commons constitue ...
, Northern Scotland. From an initial 4.8 hectares (12 acres), Al-Fayed has since built the estate up to 26,300 hectares (65,000 acres).
Al-Fayed invested more than £20 million in the estate, restored the 14th-century pink
Balnagown Castle, and created a tourist accommodation business.
The Highlands of Scotland tourist board awarded Al-Fayed the Freedom of the Highlands in 2002, in recognition of his "outstanding contribution and commitment to the Highlands."
As an Egyptian with links to Scotland, Al-Fayed was intrigued enough to fund a 2008 reprint of the 15th-century chronicle ''
Scotichronicon
The ''Scotichronicon'' is a 15th-century chronicle by the Scottish historian Walter Bower. It is a continuation of historian-priest John of Fordun's earlier work '' Chronica Gentis Scotorum'' beginning with the founding of Ireland and thereb ...
'' by
Walter Bower
Walter Bower (or Bowmaker; 24 December 1449) was a Scottish canon regular and abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in the Firth of Forth, who is noted as a chronicler of his era. He was born about 1385 at Haddington, East Lothian, in the Kingdom of Sc ...
. The ''Scotichronicon'' describes how
Scota
In medieval Irish and Scottish legend, Scota or Scotia is the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh and ancestor of the Gaels. She is said to be the origin of their Latin name ''Scoti''. Scholars believe she could be a fictional character who wa ...
, a sister of the Egyptian Pharaoh, fled her family and landed in Scotland, bringing with her the
Stone of Scone
The Stone of Scone (; gd, An Lia Fàil; sco, Stane o Scuin)—also known as the Stone of Destiny, and often referred to in England as The Coronation Stone—is an oblong block of red sandstone that has been used for centuries in the coronati ...
. According to the chronicle, Scotland was later named in her honour. The tale is disputed by modern historians.
Al-Fayed later declared that "The Scots are originally Egyptians and that's the truth."
In 2009, Al-Fayed revealed that he was a supporter of
Scottish independence from the United Kingdom, announcing to the Scots that "It's time for you to waken up and detach yourselves from the English and their terrible politicians...whatever help is needed for Scotland to regain its independence, I will provide it...when you Scots regain your freedom, I am ready to be your president."
Charity
Fayed set up the Al Fayed Charitable Foundation in 1987 aiming to help children with life-limiting conditions and children living in poverty. The charity works mainly with charities and hospices for disabled and neglected children in the UK, Thailand and Mongolia.
Some of the charities with which it works include Francis House Hospice in Manchester, Great Ormond Street Hospital and ChildLine. In 1998, Al-Fayed bought
Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
's old boarding school in Kent and helped found the New School at West Heath for children with additional needs and mental health problems.
In 2011, Mohamed Al-Fayed's daughter Camilla, who has worked as an ambassador for the charity for eight years, opened the newly refurbished Zoe’s Place baby hospice in West Derby, Liverpool.
Fulham F.C.
Al-Fayed bought west London professional football club
Fulham F.C.
Fulham Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, London, which compete in the . They have played home games at Craven Cottage since 1896, other than a two-year period spent at Loftus Road whilst Craven Cottage unde ...
for £6.25 million in 1997.
The purchase was made via Bill Muddyman's Muddyman Group.
His long-term aim was that Fulham would become a
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
side within five years. In 2001, Fulham won the First Division (now
Football League Championship) under manager
Jean Tigana
Amadou Jean Tigana (born 23 June 1955) is a French former footballer and coach. He has played in midfield and managed professional football extensively throughout France, including 52 appearances and one goal for the France national football team ...
, winning 101 points and scoring 90 goals in the 2000/2001 season. This meant that Al-Fayed had achieved his Premier League aim a year ahead of schedule. By 2002, Fulham were competing in European football, winning the
Intertoto Cup
The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foo ...
and challenging in the
UEFA Cup
A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...
. Fulham reached the final of the
2009–10 UEFA Europa League
The 2009–10 UEFA Europa League was the first season of the UEFA Europa League, Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA. The competition was previously known as the UEFA Cup, which had been in existence for 38 years.
Spai ...
and continued to play in the Premier League throughout Al-Fayed's tenure as owner, which ended in 2013.
Fulham temporarily left
Craven Cottage
Craven Cottage is a football ground in Fulham, West London, England, which has been the home of Fulham F.C. since 1896.According to the club'official website The ground's capacity is 22,384; the record attendance is 49,335, for a game against ...
while it was being upgraded to meet modern safety standards. There were fears that the club would not return to the Cottage after it was revealed that Al-Fayed had sold the first right to build on the ground to a property development firm.
Fulham lost a legal case against former manager Tigana in 2004 after Al-Fayed had wrongly alleged that Tigana had overpaid more than £7m for new players and had negotiated transfers in secret.
In 2009, Al-Fayed said that he was in favour of a wage cap for footballers, and criticised the management of
The Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
and
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...
as "run by donkeys who don't understand business, who are dazzled by money."
A statue of the American entertainer Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
was unveiled by Al-Fayed in April 2011 at Craven Cottage. In 1999 Jackson had attended a league game against
Wigan Athletic
Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.
Founded in 1932, ...
at the stadium. Following criticism of the statue, Al-Fayed said "If some stupid fans don't understand and appreciate such a gift this guy gave to the world they can go to hell. I don't want them to be fans."
The statue was taken down by the club's new owners in 2013; Al-Fayed blamed the club's subsequent relegation from the Premier League on the 'bad luck' brought by its removal. Al-Fayed then donated the statue to the
National Football Museum
The National Football Museum is England's national museum of football. It is based in the Urbis building in Manchester city centre, and preserves, conserves and displays important collections of football memorabilia.
The museum was originally b ...
.
In March 2019, the statue was removed from the museum due to the backlash against Jackson caused by the child-abuse accusations against him in the documentary ''
Leaving Neverland
''Leaving Neverland'' is a 2019 documentary film directed and produced by the British filmmaker Dan Reed. It focuses on two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who allege they were sexually abused as children by the American singer Michael Ja ...
''.
Under Al-Fayed Fulham F.C. was owned by Mafco Holdings, based in the
tax haven
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...
of
Bermuda
)
, anthem = "God Save the King"
, song_type = National song
, song = "Hail to Bermuda"
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, mapsize2 =
, map_caption2 =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name =
, es ...
and in turn owned by Al-Fayed and his family. By 2011, Al-Fayed had lent Fulham F.C. £187 million in interest free loans.
In July 2013, it was announced that Al-Fayed had sold the club to Pakistani American businessman
Shahid Khan, who owns the
NFL's
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The team pla ...
.
Business interests
![75 Rockefeller Plaza by David Shankbone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/75_Rockefeller_Plaza_by_David_Shankbone.jpg)
Al-Fayed's business interests include:
*
Hôtel Ritz Paris
The Ritz Paris is a hotel in central Paris, overlooking the Place Vendôme in the city's 1st arrondissement. A member of the Leading Hotels of the World marketing group, the Ritz Paris is ranked among the most luxurious hotels in the world.
T ...
*
Balnagowan Castle & Estates,
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...
* HJW Geospatial
*
Turnbull & Asser
*
75 Rockefeller Plaza
75 Rockefeller Plaza is a skyscraper on the north side of 51st Street in New York City, originally built as a northern extension to Rockefeller Center.
History
In July 1944, the Rockefellers began planning a new 16-story tower to house the St ...
, New York City – built in 1947, originally the Esso Building, later the Time Warner Building; owned by Al-Fayed and managed and leased by
RXR Realty
RXR Realty is a real estate owner, manager, and developer located in New York City and surrounding areas of Westchester County, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The company is headquartered in New York, New York and Uniondale, New York. RX ...
Al-Fayed's major business purchases have included:
* Ritz Hotel Paris (1979, )
* House of Fraser Group, including
Harrods (1985, £615 million; sold 2010, £1.5 billion)
*
Fulham Football Club (1997, £30 million;
sold 2013
)
* After the death of
Wallis Simpson
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused a ...
, Fayed took over the lease of the
Villa Windsor in Paris, the former home of the Duchess of Windsor and her husband, the Duke of Windsor, previously
Edward VIII. Together with his valet
Sydney Johnson, who had also been valet to the Duke, he organised the restoration of the villa and its collections.
Death of Dodi Fayed
Background and relationship with Diana
Lady Diana Spencer
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
was born in 1961, and married the
heir to the British throne,
Charles, Prince of Wales, in 1981, becoming
Princess of Wales. Diana was an international celebrity and a frequent visitor to Harrods in the 1980s. Al-Fayed and Dodi first met Diana and Charles in July 1986 when they were introduced at a
polo tournament sponsored by Harrods.
Diana and Charles divorced in 1996. Diana was hosted by Al-Fayed in the south of France in mid-1997, with her sons, Princes
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
and
Harry
Harry may refer to:
TV shows
* ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin
* ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons
* ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...
.
[ (]HighBeam Research
HighBeam Research was a paid search engine and full text online archive owned by Gale, a subsidiary of Cengage, for thousands of newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines, and encyclopedias in English. It was head ...
subscription required) For the holiday, Fayed bought a 195 ft yacht, the ''
Jonikal'' (later renamed the ''Sokar'').
Dodi and Diana later began a private cruise on the ''Jonikal'' and paparazzi photographs of the couple in an embrace were published. Diana's friend, the journalist Richard Kay, confirmed that Diana was involved in "her first serious romance" since her divorce.
Dodi and Diana went on a second private cruise on the ''Jonikal'' in the third week of August, and returned from
Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
to Paris on 30 August. The couple privately dined at the Ritz later that day, after the behaviour of the press caused them to cancel a restaurant reservation; they then planned to spend the night at Dodi's apartment near the
Arc de Triomphe.
In an attempt to deceive the paparazzi, a decoy car left the front of the hotel, while Diana and Dodi departed at speed in a Mercedes-Benz S280 driven by chauffeur
Henri Paul
In the early hours of 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales died from injuries sustained earlier that day in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France. Dodi Fayed, Diana's partner, and Henri Paul, their chauffeur, were foun ...
from the rear of the hotel.
Five minutes later, the car crashed in the
Pont de l'Alma
The Pont de l'Alma ( en, Alma Bridge) is a road bridge in Paris, France, across the Seine. It was named to commemorate the Battle of Alma during the Crimean War, in which the Ottoman-Franco-British alliance achieved victory over the Russian arm ...
tunnel. Dodi and Paul were found dead at this location. Diana died afterwards in hospital. British bodyguard
Trevor Rees-Jones, who sustained a serious head injury, was the sole survivor of the crash, though conscious after the car crashed. Fayed arrived in Paris a day later and viewed Dodi's body, which was finally returned to the United Kingdom for an
Islamic funeral.
Conspiracy theories
From February 1998, Al-Fayed maintained that the crash was a result of a conspiracy,
and later contended that the crash was orchestrated by
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
on the instructions of
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...
.
His claims were dismissed by a French judicial investigation, but Fayed appealed the verdict. A libel action was brought against Al-Fayed by Neil Hamilton (see above).
The British
Operation Paget
Operation Paget was the British Metropolitan Police inquiry established in 2004 to investigate the conspiracy theories about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car crash in Paris in 1997. The inquiry's first report with the findings of t ...
, a
Metropolitan police inquiry that concluded in 2006, also found no evidence of a conspiracy. To Operation Paget, Al-Fayed made 175 "conspiracy claims".
An inquest headed by
Lord Justice Scott Baker into the deaths of Diana and Dodi began at the
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The High Court also sits on circuit and in other major cities. Designed by Ge ...
, London, on 2 October 2007 and lasted for six months. It was a continuation of the original inquest that had begun in 2004.
At the Scott Baker inquest, Fayed accused the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales,
Lady Sarah McCorquodale
Lady Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia McCorquodale (''née'' Spencer; born 19 March 1955) is one of the two older sisters of Diana, Princess of Wales, the other being Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes.
Early life
Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia Spencer was born ...
, her sister, and numerous others, of plotting to kill the Princess of Wales. Their motive, he claimed, was that they could not tolerate the idea of the Princess marrying a Muslim.
Al-Fayed first claimed that the Princess was pregnant to the ''
Daily Express'' in May 2001,
and that he was the only person who had been told. Witnesses at the inquest who said the Princess was not pregnant, and could not have been, were part of the conspiracy according to Al-Fayed. Fayed's testimony at the inquest was roundly condemned in the press as farcical. Members of the British Government's
Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
accused Fayed of turning the inquest into a 'circus' and called for it to be ended prematurely. Lawyers representing Al-Fayed later accepted at the inquest that there was no direct evidence that either the Duke of Edinburgh nor MI6 was involved in any murder conspiracy involving Diana or Dodi.
A few days before Al-Fayed's appearance, John Macnamara, a former senior detective at Scotland Yard and Al-Fayed's investigator for five years from 1997, was forced to admit on 14 February 2008 that he had no evidence to suggest foul play, except for the assertions Al-Fayed had made to him.
His admissions also related to the lack of evidence for Al-Fayed's claims of the Princess's pregnancy and the couple's engagement.
The jury verdict, given on 7 April 2008, was that Diana and Dodi were "
unlawfully killed" through the
grossly negligent
Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negl ...
driving of chauffeur Henri Paul,
who was
intoxicated, and the pursuing vehicles.
Al-Fayed's lawyers also accepted that there was no evidence to support the assertion that Diana was illegally embalmed to conceal pregnancy, or that a pregnancy could be confirmed by any medical evidence.
They also accepted that there was no evidence to support the assertion that the French emergency and medical services had played any role in a conspiracy to harm Diana.
Following the Baker inquest, Al-Fayed said that he was abandoning his conspiracy campaign, and would accept the jury's verdict.
Journalist
Dominic Lawson
Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson (born 17 December 1956) is a British journalist.
Background
Lawson was born to a Jewish family, the elder son of Conservative politician Nigel Lawson and his first wife socialite Vanessa Salmon. Lawson was educated ...
wrote in ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' in 2008 that Al-Fayed sought to concoct "a conspiracy to cover up the true circumstances" of fatalities caused by the crash "involving an intoxicated and over-excited driver (an employee of Mohamed Fayed's Paris Ritz)". He "had remarkable success in persuading elements of the tabloid press, notably the ''Daily Express'', to give the conspiracy a fair wind."
Al-Fayed financially supported ''
Unlawful Killing
In English law, unlawful killing is a verdict that can be returned by an inquest in England and Wales when someone has been killed by one or more unknown persons. The verdict means that the killing was done without lawful excuse and in breach of ...
'' (2011), a documentary film presenting his version of events. It was not formally released because of the potential for libel suits.
Sexual harassment allegations
Al-Fayed has been accused by multiple women of
sexual harassment and assault.
Young women applying for employment at Harrods were often submitted to
HIV test
HIV tests are used to detect the presence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), in serum, saliva, or urine. Such tests may detect antibodies, antigens, or RNA.
AIDS diagnos ...
s and gynaecological examinations.
They were then selected to spend the weekend with Al-Fayed in Paris.
In her profile of Al-Fayed for ''
Vanity Fair'',
Maureen Orth
Maureen Orth is an American journalist, author, and a Special Correspondent for ''Vanity Fair'' magazine. She is the founder of Marina Orth Foundation, which has established a model education program in Colombia emphasizing technology, English, a ...
described how, according to former employees, "Fayed regularly walked the store on the lookout for young, attractive women to work in his office. Those who rebuffed him would often be subjected to crude, humiliating comments about their appearance or dress... A dozen ex-employees I spoke with said that
Fayed would chase secretaries around the office and sometimes try to stuff money down women's blouses".
In December 1997, the
ITV current affairs programme ''The Big Story'' broadcast testimonies from a number of former Harrods employees who spoke of how Al-Fayed routinely sexually harassed women in similar ways.
Al-Fayed was interviewed under caution by the
Metropolitan Police after an allegation of sexual assault against a 15-year-old schoolgirl in October 2008. The case was dropped by the
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...
when they found there was no realistic chance of conviction due to conflicting statements.
A December 2017 episode of Channel 4's ''
Dispatches'' programme alleged that Al-Fayed sexually harassed three Harrods employees, and attempted to "groom" them. One of the women was 17 at the time. Cheska Hill-Wood waived her right to anonymity to be interviewed for the programme. The programme alleged Al-Fayed targeted young employees over a 13-year period.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
archivedon
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...
in 2014)
Al-Fayed Charitable Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fayed, Mohamed
1929 births
Living people
20th-century Egyptian businesspeople
Egyptian billionaires
Egyptian conspiracy theorists
Egyptian emigrants to England
Egyptian emigrants to Switzerland
Egyptian expatriates in Monaco
Egyptian football chairmen and investors
Egyptian Muslims
El Fayed family
Fulham F.C. directors and chairmen
Harrods
Hoteliers
House of Fraser
People from Alexandria