Three women who worked at Harrods accuse Mohamed Al-Fayed’s brother, Salah Fayed, of raping them when the two men owned the London department store, in an interview with the BBC on Thursday.
• Also read: Sexual violence: more than 200 women accusing Al-Fayed negotiate an out-of-court settlement with Harrods
• Also read: Multimillionaire predator: who was Mohamed Al-Fayed?
According to these testimonies, the rapes occurred in London, in the south of France and in Monaco between 1989 and 1997.
Salah Fayed died in 2010 and Mohamed Al-Fayed in 2023.
The three women, one of whom, Helen, testifies openly, also claim to have been raped by Mohamed Al-Fayed.
Helen says she was 23 and had been working at Harrods for two years when the Egyptian businessman raped her in a Dubai hotel room in 1989.
She was then transferred to become the personal assistant of her brother Salah, whom she accuses of having drugged her before raping her. She resigned shortly after.
“He (Mohamed Al Fayed) shared me with his brother,” she said.
The second woman to testify claims to have been raped during a trip to Monaco by Salah, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010. The third accuses him of rape in 1997 in London, then in Monaco, at a time when , aged 19, she worked at Harrods.
London police said Thursday they were aware of the accusations against Salah Fayed.
“We remain committed to exploring all reasonable lines of inquiry, carefully reviewing new information and identifying any allegations that may lead to criminal prosecution,” Commander Stephen Clayman said in a statement.
Contacted by AFP, the current management of Harrods affirms that it “supports the courage of these women” to testify and encourages them to approach it in order to “request compensation” and obtain support.
“We also hope that they will consider all appropriate avenues in their quest for justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family,” the group added.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reproduced the testimony of another victim who claims that Mohamed Al-Fayed’s other brother, Ali, 80, was aware of the “trafficking” of women carried out by his elder.
Testimonies against Mohamed Al-Fayed have multiplied since the broadcast, in September, of a BBC documentary reporting multiple accusations of rape and other sexual assaults allegedly committed by the Egyptian businessman, who died in August 2023 at the age of 94.
The Justice for Harrods Survivors group said it had been contacted by more than 420 people, both victims and witnesses, about facts mainly concerning the department store as well as the Fulham football club, the Ritz hotel in Paris and other places.
At the beginning of November, the police assured that they were examining the way in which 21 testimonies “filed before the death of Mohamed Al-Fayed” had been processed by them in order to determine “if additional investigative measures are possible or if it “There are things we could have done better.”
