- Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods, has died at the age of 94.
- His death came nearly 26 years after the car crash that killed Princess Diana and his son, Dodi.
- He was buried at Barrow Green Court, the same estate where Dodi was laid to rest.
Mohamed Al Fayed, the former owner of Harrods and the father of Princess Diana's partner Dodi Al Fayed, has died at the age of 94.
The Egyptian-born businessman, who also once owned Fulham Football Club, died on Wednesday, his family said in a statement, the BBC reported.
"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 on Wednesday August 30, 2023," the statement said.
A funeral service was held in his honor at the London Central Mosque in Regents Park on Friday, according to LBC. He was buried alongside his son at the family's Surrey estate.
Mohamed's death came a day before the 26th anniversary of Dodi and Diana's deaths. The couple died during a car crash in a tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997, while attempting to escape paparazzi.
Following the deaths of Diana and Dodi, Mohamed was outspoken about his belief that the crash was not accidental.
In 2001, he filed lawsuits to force multiple US agencies to release files he felt would prove his claims, ABC News reported.
"I am in no doubt that the death was the result of a murder with racism at the core," he said, per the report.
When French authorities published their findings on the incident, which called the crash accidental, he also appealed the reports, according to Vanity Fair.
During a 2008 inquest into their deaths in the UK — which concluded the car crash was a "tragic accident" — Mohamed claimed that the couple was killed in a plot masterminded by British intelligence agencies and Prince Philip, NBC News reported.
According to the BBC, the coroner dismissed Mohamed's claims, saying they were a "conspiracy theory."
"I will never be able to reconcile myself to the needless and cruel deaths of two people who were so vibrant, generous, and full of life," Mohamed said in a prepared statement published by The Washington Post in 1997. "God took their souls to live together in paradise. Now they have peace."
