Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, the former owner of Harrods and whose son Dodi died with Diana Princess of Wales in the car accident, has died at the age of 94, it was announced on Friday.
Al-Fayed was also the owner of the Fulham Football Club, a London emblem that made the businessman’s death public.
“On behalf of everyone at Fulham Football Club, I send my condolences to the family and friends of Mohamed Al-Fayed following the news of his passing at the age of 94,” his successor as owner Shahid Khan said in a statement. a statement. published on the social network Facebook quoted by the Associated Press (AP) agency.
In a statement, the family said that Mohamed Al-Fayed died on Wednesday. After his eldest son, Dodi, was killed in a car accident along with Princess Diana, Al-Fayed spent years questioning the circumstances of his death.
Diana and Dodi died in Paris in 1997, at the age of 36, when the car in which they were traveling with the driver collided with a concrete pillar in the tunnel through which they were passing while being chased by photographers in cars and motorcycles.
A British judicial inquiry concluded that the accident was due to the negligent conduct of the pursuing vehicles and the driver’s high level of alcohol.
Al-Fayed has largely remained out of the public spotlight for the past decade, living in his mansion in Surrey, southeast England, with his wife Heini.
The Egyptian-born entrepreneur built a business empire in the Middle East before moving to the UK in the 1970s.
Al-Fayed never realized his ambition to obtain a passport from his adopted country, according to the BBC.
Five years later, eager to secure his position, specifically among the highest echelons of British society, he bought the iconic Paris Ritz hotel with his brother Ali for £20 million.
The brothers bought Harrods in 1985 for £615m after an intense bidding “war” with the Lonrho mining group.
Al Fayed then bought Fulham Football Club in the 1990s, taking the London club from the third tier to the top tier of English football, the Premier League.
Source: TSF
