Three women who worked for the Harrods department store in London a brother is accused of Mohamed al Fayedformer owner of the establishment, of sexual assaults, the BBC revealed Thursday. The women said Salah Fayed, younger brother of the late Egyptian tycoon, abused them in London, France and Monaco between 1989 and 1997, when he was chairman of Harrods. One of them claimed that believes she was raped by Salah Fayedwho died in 2010 of pancreatic cancer after being drugged.
According to the BBC, Harrods said in a statement that these new allegations raised “serious suspicions” on Al Fayed’s brother and reveal the extent of the crimes perpetrated by the former owner of the department store, against whom the following have already been gathered more than 400 testimonies of sexual offenses.
One of the three women, identified as Helen, explained that Al Fayed raped her in a Dubai hotel and months later placed her as a personal assistant to his brother, who assaulted her after drugging her. “[Al Fayed] he shared me with his brother“, Helen told the BBC.
On Oct. 31, the group Justice for Harrods Survivors explained that it has already sent the first formal letter of complaint to the store, in what amounts to “the beginning of the legal process”.
According to lawyers representing the group, most of the 421 testimonies received relate to cases that occurred in “the Harrods context”although others have also been recorded from the Fulham soccer club or the Ritz hotel in Paris, also owned by Al Fayed.
The BBC recently aired a documentary revealing the extent of Al Fayed’s abuse of female employees at Harrods and since then at least 40 women have contacted the police to report that they suffered sexual harassment by the businessman since 1977.