Mohamed al-Fayed, the self-made Egyptian billionaire who bought London's luxury Harrods department store, has died aged 94.
Key points:
- Mohamed al-Fayed died "peacefully of old age"
- His son, Dodi, died with Princess Diana in a car crash in 1997
- During the inquest into their deaths, Mr al-Fayed alleged the princess was murdered to stop her from carrying Dodi's baby
Mr al-Fayed spent 10 years trying to prove Princess Diana and his son Dodi were murdered when their car crashed in a Paris road tunnel in 1997 while trying to outrun paparazzi.
His family said he died on Wednesday — a day before the 26th anniversary of Dodi and Diana's death.
"Mrs Mohamed Al Fayed, her children and grandchildren wish to confirm that her beloved husband, their father and their grandfather, Mohamed, has passed away peacefully of old age," the family statement read.
The billionaire had previously said he wanted to be mummified in a golden sarcophagus in a glass pyramid on the roof of Harrods.
Born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Mr al-Fayed began his career selling fizzy drinks and then worked as a sewing-machine salesman.
He built his family's fortune in real estate, shipping and construction, first in the Middle East and then in Europe.
Although Mr al-Fayed owned establishment symbols such as Harrods and the Fulham Football Club, he was always an outsider in Britain.
He fell out with the British government over its refusal to grant him citizenship of the country that was his home for decades.
The former Ritz Paris hotel owner often threatened to move to France, which gave him the Legion of Honour, its highest civilian award.
Unsupported by any evidence, according to the inquest into Diana's death, he claimed that she was bearing Dodi's child.
He also accused Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's husband, of ordering Britain's security services to kill Diana to stop her marrying a Muslim and having his baby.
The 'Phoney Pharaoh'
Much of Mr al-Fayed's past remains murky — even his date of birth.
He said he was born in then British-ruled Egypt in 1933. However, a British government inquiry into the Harrods takeover said this occurred in 1929.
Mr al-Fayed became a British resident in 1974 and added the "al" to his name.
Casting this as self-aggrandisement, the satirical magazine Private Eye nicknamed him the "Phoney Pharaoh".
In 1985, he and his brothers beat businessman Roland "Tiny" Rowland to buying Harrods.
Mr al-Fayed hoped that buying the store would win him acceptance in British society. Instead, it led to a series of bitter confrontations.
Mr Rowland took Mr al-Fayed and his brothers to a Department of Trade inquiry, claiming that they had misrepresented their wealth.
The inquiry cast doubt on their origins as part of a wealthy business family, past business connections, and their independent financial resources.
After a quarter of century of ownership, Mr al-Fayed sold Harrods to Qatar's sovereign wealth fund in 2010.
Mr al-Fayed's application for British citizenship was denied by the government in 1995. He said racism kept him on the fringe of acceptability.
A year earlier, Mr al-Fayed had embarrassed the government by disclosing that he had made gifts and payments to politicians in return for them asking parliamentary questions for him.
The so-called "cash-for-questions" scandal ended the careers of four politicians, including one minister.
The allegations of sleaze undermined the Conservatives, who lost a landslide election to Labour leader Tony Blair in 1997.
Princess Diana and Dodi
That same year, Mr al-Fayed's son Dodi began a relationship with Princess Diana, who had divorced Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne.
The pair were pictured by British tabloids on holiday on a yacht in the south of France.
After travelling to Paris, the couple were killed when their Mercedes, driven at high speed by a chauffeur who had been drinking whisky and was trying to evade the paparazzi, crashed into a concrete pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.
Beset by grief and an overwhelming sense of injustice, Mr al-Fayed spent millions on legal battles to ensure there was an inquest.
When the inquest started in London a decade after the crash, Mr al-Fayed would accuse everyone from the royal family, prime minister Blair, Diana's sister Sarah, the French embalmers of Diana's body, and the Paris ambulance drivers of being implicated.
But the jury said the couple were unlawfully killed by their chauffeur's driving.
Mr Al-Fayed said he accepted the verdict and gave up legal attempts to show they were murdered.
"I'm leaving the rest for God to get my revenge," he said.
Reuters