37 women accuse billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed of alleged sexual assault

Dozens of women “from around the world” have accused the late Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed – Dodi’s father – of sexual assault. Princess Diana’s former partner and owner of the iconic British department store Harrods, his lawyers announced on Friday.

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“The time has come for justice to be done,” American lawyer Gloria Allred told a news conference in London. who is part of the group of lawyers handling the case of 37 women from several countries.

Another of the lawyers, Dean Armstrong, said that they would take action against the London warehouses “in the name of the collective responsibility of the company”, which he also accused of “failing to provide a safe system of work”.

Some of the women were minors at the time of the incident, “only 15 or 16 years old,” according to the lawyers.

The Egyptian billionaire, who died in August 2023 at the age of 94, sold the department store in 2010 to the Qatar Investment Authority fund, for £1.5 billion ($2.2 billion).

The BBC broadcast a documentary last Thursday accusing Mohamed Al Fayed of sexual assault, following an investigation by the British television network itself.

The network questioned 20 women who accused the former owner of Harrods of assaults at his properties in London and Paris between the late 1980s and 2000s.

Of those interviewed, five accused him of rape, according to the documentary titled Al Fayed: A Harrods Predator.

Another lawyer, Bruce Drummond, said there were victims of Al Fayed “all over the world” and encouraged other assaulted women to come forward.

The complainants come from Malaysia, Australia, Italy, Romania, the United States and Canada. Some of the attacks the tycoon is accused of took place in places such as Saint Tropez, in south-eastern France, and Abu Dhabi.

Al Fayed was “a monster who knew how to act thanks to a system,” denunciation Dean Armstrong.

“If Harrods management feels it should financially compensate these women (…) then we would be grateful, but we will not accept accusations of being interested only in money. “It’s about much more than that,” the lawyer added.

According to attorney Gloria Allred, the attacks were “constant and repeated.”

“There has been a quarter of a century of sexual violence at Harrods,” she added, stressing that attacks also took place at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which the businessman owned.

Previous indictment in 2015

His son Dodi Al Fayed and Princess Diana, ex-wife of the current British King Charles III, They died in a traffic accident in Paris on 31 August 1997, shortly after leaving the Ritz Hotel where they were staying.

One of the alleged victims, Natacha, who did not reveal her last name, called Al Fayed a “sick predator.” “I was so young that I didn’t know what to do or how to react,” added the alleged victim, who was 19 at the time of the incident.

Mohamed Al Fayed has previously been accused of sexual assault by several women and Police opened an investigation in 2015, but he was never charged.

Following the BBC documentary, the current Qatari owners of the London department store They declared themselves “dismayed” and offered their apologies.

Since 2023, the department store has reached “amicable agreements” with “most of the accusers” who came forward, adding that new lawsuits have arrived following the broadcast of the BBC documentary.

For its part, the Ritz Hotel expressed to AFP its “firm condemnation of any form of behaviour” that does not agree with the values ​​of our establishment.”

Born in 1929 in a modest suburb of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Mohamed Al Fayed spent much of his life in the UK, where he became owner of Harrods in 1985 and of Fulham FC football club between 1997 and 2013, a period in which the London team were Europa League finalists in 2010.

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