Claim of 'Princess Diana Murdered'... Billionaire Al Fayed Passes Away

Diana's Passenger's Father at Time of Death
1997 Lawsuit Claiming "British Royal Family Behind"

British billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed has passed away at the age of 94. He was the former owner of Harrods department store in the UK and is known as the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who died in a car accident along with Diana, Princess of Wales.

BBC, CNN, and other outlets reported on the 1st (local time) that Al-Fayed's family stated Mohamed Al-Fayed "peacefully passed away due to old age" on the 30th.

CCTV footage capturing Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed alive entering the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
[Photo by Reuters, Yonhap News]

Al-Fayed was born in 1929 in Alexandria, Egypt. He was a self-made businessman who started by selling carbonated drinks on the street and eventually became the owner of the famous British department store Harrods.

He entered the trading business after being employed by millionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, the brother of his first wife, Saudi Arabian writer Samira Khashoggi, and in 1966 was appointed as an advisor to the Sultan of Brunei, one of the world's wealthiest individuals.

In 1974, he moved to the UK and rose to prominence by acquiring the Paris Ritz Hotel and Harrods department store. He once served as the owner of Premier League club Fulham Football Club (FC) and established a charitable foundation in 1987.

He publicly clashed with the British royal family after his son Dodi Al-Fayed, who was in a relationship with Princess Diana, died in a car accident with her in Paris, France, on August 31, 1997.

Princess Diana had divorced then-Prince Charles, now King Charles III, in 1996 and lost her life in a crash in the Alma Tunnel in Paris while trying to evade paparazzi along with Dodi Al-Fayed.

He refused to accept the French police investigation results, which cited the driver's speeding and drunk driving as causes of the accident. He claimed the British royal family was behind the deaths of Princess Diana and his son.

However, a British court jury, after hearing testimonies from over 250 witnesses worldwide over six months in 2008, concluded that the accident was caused by the careless driving of the driver and paparazzi.

In 2010, Al-Fayed sold Harrods to Qatar's sovereign wealth fund for ?1.5 billion (approximately 2.5 trillion KRW). Since then, he spent his later years away from public attention at his mansion in Surrey, near London.

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