Mohamed al Fayed, the Egyptian billionaire who bought Harrods department store and promoted the conspiracy theory that the British Royal Family was behind the death of his son Dodi and Princess Diana, died in London on Friday at the age of 94. , as reported by Fulham FC, a club he owns.
Born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Al Fayed began his career selling soft drinks and later worked as a sewing machine salesman. He built his family's fortune in real estate, shipping and construction, first in the Middle East and then in Europe.
Although Al Fayed owned symbols such as Harrods, Fulham and the Ritz hotel in Paris, he was always an outsider in the United Kingdom; tolerated, but not accepted. He fell out with the British government over its refusal to grant him citizenship in the country that was his home for decades and often threatened to move to France, which awarded him the Legion of Honour, Britain's highest civilian decoration. he.
Al Fayed spent a decade proving that Diana and her son were killed when their car crashed in a Paris tunnel in 1997 while trying to escape paparazzi. Unsupported by any evidence, he claimed that she was pregnant by Dodi and accused Prince Philip, the Queen's husband, of ordering British security services to kill her to prevent her from marrying a Muslim and having a baby.
Like many billionaires, Al Fayed despised convention. He once said that he wanted to be mummified in a golden sarcophagus and deposited in a glass pyramid on the roof of Harrods. At department stores, where he instituted a dress code -- including for customers -- he installed a bronze memorial statue of Diana and Dodi dancing under the wings of an albatross.
As the owner of Fulham, he erected a huge sequined statue of Michael Jackson outside the stadium, despite the fact that the singer only attended one game. When someone complained, he would say, "If some stupid fans don't understand or appreciate such a gift, they can go to hell."
Much of Al Fayed's past remains unclear, including his date of birth. According to his own testimony, he was born in 1933 in what was then British-ruled Egypt. However, a British government inquiry into the Harrods takeover revealed that it was in 1929.
After a quarter century of ownership, Al Fayed sold Harrods to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2010.
His application for British citizenship was denied by the government in 1995. Shortly before, Al Fayed had claimed that he had given gifts and payments to politicians in exchange for asking parliamentary questions on his behalf. The so-called "money for questions" scandal ended the careers of four politicians, including a minister.
