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Europe|Mohamed al-Fayed, Former Harrods Owner, Accused of Raping 5 Women
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/19/world/europe/mohamed-al-fayed-harrods-rape.html
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Multiple former employees told the BBC they had been raped or sexually assaulted by the billionaire businessman, who died last year.
Sept. 19, 2024, 8:44 a.m. ET
Multiple women have accused Mohamed al-Fayed, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, the luxury British department store, of rape and sexual assault, according to an investigation by the BBC.
Five women said Mr. Al Fayed, who died in 2023 at age 94, had raped them, while others detailed alarming accounts of sexual assault and harassment while they were working at Harrods.
Mr. al-Fayed, a tycoon with numerous properties and ships around the world, owned Harrods from 1985 to 2010. Later in his life, he became best known for the romance between his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales, who both died in a 1997 car crash in Paris.
In a BBC documentary released on Thursday called “Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods,” more than 20 female ex-employees presented harrowing accounts of abuse. The allegations span years and continents, with accusations in London, Paris, St. Tropez and Abu Dhabi.
While the BBC investigation is not the first to accuse Mr. Al Fayed of unwanted sexual advances or harassment, it offers the clearest picture yet of abusive patterns of behavior and raise questions about how women’s accounts were dismissed for so long.
A 1995 investigation in Vanity Fair by Maureen Orth, an employee said that Mr. al-Fayed “regularly walked the store on the lookout for young, attractive women to work in his office” and detailed other problematic behavior. Mr. al-Fayed sued for libel but eventually dropped the case.
