A total of 37 women “from around the world” accused of sexual assault to the late Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed -father of Dodi, Princess Diana’s ex-partner, and who was the owner of the iconic British department store Harrods-, his lawyers announced on Friday.
“The time has come for justice to be done,” US lawyer Gloria Allred, who is part of the group of lawyers handling the case, told a news conference in London.
Another of the lawyers, Dean Armstrong, said that they would take legal action against the popular London department store “in the name of the collective responsibility of the company”, which he also accused of “failing to provide a safe system of work”.
The Egyptian billionaire, who died in 2023 at the age of 94, sold the department store in 2010 to the Qatar Investment Authority.
The BBC broadcast a documentary and podcast on Thursday accusing Mohamed Al Fayed of rape and sexual assault, following an investigation by the British television network itself.
The network questioned 20 women who accused the former owner of Harrods of assault and violence at his properties in London and Paris between the late 1980s and the 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 women assaulted by the Egyptian tycoon to come forward.
Al Fayed was “a monster who knew how to act thanks to a system”Dean Armstrong denounced.
“If Harrods management feels that it should financially compensate these women (…) of course, that is something we would welcome, but we will not accept being accused of being interested only in money. It is about much more than that,” he added.
Source: Ambito
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