MOHAMED AL FAYED'S TEARS AS HE QUITS UK
May 2 2003
EXCLUSIVE
By Sue Carroll
BEFORE I even meet Mohamed Al Fayed I feel I've been thoroughly checked out.
His Chief of Security offered advice on what his boss might like to discuss. At Harrods, the senior press officer has briefed me - while Frank Klein, president of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, greets my arrival there with an update on the ongoing investigation into Dodi and Diana's death.
To a man, they sing the praises of their employer and are, I suspect, genuinely concerned that I may misunderstand or misinterpret him.
It is easily done.
Al Fayed's account of why he quit Britain last month is like a bicycle ride up a mountain. You know it'll be worth it when you get to the top ... but boy, does it wear you out.
The reason I'm in Paris on this fine spring day is because the Harrods boss is here on business, commuting regularly between the prestigious Ritz hotel he's owned for 24 years and a home in Switzerland.
He feels angry and embittered about his self-imposed exile, and speaking for the first time about his departure he isn't pulling any punches.
"Why have I left?" he asks. "Because I had no choice, effectively I've been forced out. I've been confronted with people with the ultimate power ... the establishment, those bloody gangsters who made a vendetta against me which was never going to end."
He is referring to the titled aristocracy, the elitist clique who hang around the gentlemen's clubs of Pall Mall, the Royal family - in particular Prince Philip - and most importantly, MI6. He's not wild about the government either, but more of that later.
Its a formidable list of opponents who, he claims, at one time or another have made his existence in Britain troubled.
IN fact, his departure was prompted by the loss of a long-running battle with the Inland Revenue over an agreement relating to his overseas capital and income which, he says, was suddenly terminated "out of the blue".
"It was the final straw. There are others who are still allowed to continue with this arrangement," he says. "But not me. You tell me that's not a witch-hunt. Why have I been singled out? Because it's a conspiracy. The fascist group who run the country are afraid because I am exposing the truth about my son Dodi and Princess Diana.
"I am victimised in Britain, the country I love, where my children were born and where I lived for 40 years. No one shows any appreciation of the things I've done, the money I brought in, the jobs I provided."
He is quick to point out that in over 20 years he and his businesses paid no less than £100million a year to the British Exchequer and that thousands of tax-paying people depended on him.
Were it not for Harrods, 6,000 people would be seeking employment. Fulham FC would doubtless be in deeper trouble, Manchester's Francis House hospice and Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital would be looking for funding while London's Great Ormond Street Hospital would be poorer by £6million.
"Anyone else would be thanked," he says. "Instead, there's a conspiracy against me. I left because I never let anyone step on my foot or treat me unfairly. I've had enough hassle. Illegal immigrants are treated better in Britain than me."
We are sitting in a sumptuous suite at the Ritz, the last place Princess Diana and his son Dodi were seen alive. Outside, in Place Vendome, tourists hover, taking pictures of the swing doors where the Princess was captured on closed circuit TV entering the building.
"They don't forget her," he says. "And nor do I. Not like the rest of those bastards at Buckingham Palace."
How the royals must cringe as he doggedly pursues his belief that Diana and his son were murdered by British Intelligence Services. Prince Philip, he insists, was the leading "thug" who wanted to see off his former daughter-in-law.
"I believe the majority of people in Britain are sick of the scandals surrounding the royals," he says. "It's time to say goodbye and hang the lot of them. I've met the Queen, she's a nice woman, a good woman, but she doesn't have any life experience.
"That Charles, he's an idiot. How could he have left Diana, a lovely woman, for Camilla, a woman with a face like a crocodile?"
Oh, go on, Al Fayed, tell us what you really think. At 70, he is fit, immensely dapper and less overbearing than one imagines. He switches from a defiant battler one minute to a concerned, almost patriarchal, host the next.
"So, do you need the toilet?" he asked before I left.
He laughs often at his own outrageous wit - but during the interview he bursts into tears. I suspect he's as grief-stricken today about the loss of his son as he was five and a half years ago.
"How often do I think about him? More than half my life. It's like somebody chopped off your leg. One of the worst things about leaving England is that he is still there, in the grave.
"His apartments in London and Paris are just as he left them.
Al Fayed has, of course, the immense wealth to continue probing and searching for clues which will back up his conspiracy theory.
Last year he produced a video called The Alma Tunnel Mystery, recording his version of events of what really happened to Dodi and Diana.
It's an intriguing documentary, citing the mystery of the white Fiat which sped by, the unexplained levels of carbon monoxide in chauffeur Henri Paul's blood, and the fact that it took the emergency services more than an hour to cut Diana and Dodi out of the car.
IT RAISES several questions. Some are extreme, far-fetched even. Others are fascinating - and many are unanswered.
"It's my firm belief," he says, "that the day after they left Paris they were going to announce their engagement. I know Diana was pregnant.
"I know the names of the MI6 guys involved in the killing. I know also they used the blueprint of a plan devised to kill Slobodan Milosevic in a tunnel.
"But it was a bungled job and the more lies that are told, the harder it will become for the culprits to answer questions.
"We have proof now, from Sir John Stevens' report, that the MI6 killed people in Ireland. It's taken 13 years to uncover that but, finally, the truth is out."
I suggest that there are many who would prefer to let the souls of their loved ones rest in peace. I'm thinking particularly of Diana's sons, William and Harry.
"If it takes years I will find justice for my son," he says. "Look at Julie Ward, killed in Kenya. It took her father over a decade to find out the truth and secure the convictions of her murderers, but he never gave up.
"Diana knew that her life was in danger. She told me. I also knew that she had recorded all her thoughts on video, telling the truth about these people who call themselves aristocrats.
"She alone knew that they live in this strange colonial world, so far removed from real life and it scared her. All she ever wanted was sanctuary. Dodi was able to give her that. But they deprived her of happiness, for sheer prejudice and envy."
It's hard to see how anything will change to Mr Fayed's satisfaction. He has so many bones of contention about the country he's left that it's hard to know where to start.
Spitting out his words in a final furious torrent of expletives he says: "Tony Blair? That man's not one of the ordinary people.
"How is it that in Britain, a country full of hugely respected business people, scientists and pioneers these lightweights are allowed to rule?
"John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, doesn't know his back from his front. I wouldn't employ him as a Harrods' doorman.
"Tony Blair must know what I've done for the Labour Party."
He is referring to his involvement in the downfall of Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his colleague Jonathan Aitken, whom he claims was responsible for turning Downing Street into a "nightclub for arms dealers" during the Thatcher Years.
"When I know something stinks, nobody is going to silence me," he says.
"And in fairness, an army of New Labour spin doctors could only dream of inflicting the sort of damage Al Fayed unleashed on the Conservative Party.
"And what thanks did I get from that guy Blair?" he asks. "Not an ounce of appreciation. When I asked him to help me launch a public inquiry here into Dodi and Di's death, do you know what response I got? Silence!"
So does he believe that his words are forever fated to fall on deaf ears?
"No," he says. "The ordinary people of Britain, the decent, hard-working men and women who loved Diana, they hear me."
On that, I think he may have a point.
