Pharaoh of Harrods

Extraordinary life of controversy with tragic link to Diana

- LUCY THORNTON

MOHAMED Al-Fayed, who has died at the age of 94, was a colourful, controversial and often abrasive businessman who never shied away from a fight, even taking on the Royal Family.

His first battle was to create a billion-pound business empire in his adopted UK, including upmarket London store Harrods.

This led to the Egyptian being dubbed the Phoney Pharaoh.

But the tycoon's most public attack was on the House of Windsor and the Establishment over the death of his playboy son and heir Dodi alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in a Paris car crash.

Al-Fayed spent a decade after the lovers' 1997 deaths in the Alma tunnel repeatedly claiming that they were murdered in a plot by the security services and the Duke of Edinburgh. But he was forced to concede defeat after a highprofile six-month inquest in 2007 and 2008.

The jury returned unlawful killing verdicts on both Diana and Dodi, but pinned the blame on the drink-driving of their chauffeur Henri Paul, who also died in the crash.

Paul was employed by the Paris Ritz hotel, owned by Al-Fayed, from where their journey had started on August 31.