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London police announced on Friday that they had received 40 new complaints of rape or sexual assault against the late owner of the London department store Harrods, Egyptian Mohamed Al-Fayed, since the BBC revelations on September 19.
These 40 new accusations are added to the 21 received before the documentary was broadcast, the police said.
Following the revelations by the British television network, the police received “40 new testimonies, covering crimes such as sexual assault and rape during the period from 1979 to 2013,” according to the institution’s statement.
The allegations will be “examined” to determine whether they may lead to prosecutions against persons other than Mohamed Al-Fayed, who died in August 2023 at the age of 94, for whom, having died, there is no possibility of any criminal action in against him, the police specified.
Mohamed Al-Fayed was the father of Dodi, who was the partner of Princess Diana of Wales and who died with her in a traffic accident in Paris in 1997.
More than 200 women, who accuse the Egyptian billionaire of sexual violence, began negotiations for an agreement with Harrods, following the BBC revelations, those responsible for the department store announced on Thursday.
Al-Fayed became the owner of Harrods in 1985 and of the Fulham FC football club between 1997 and 2013, a period in which the London team was a Europa League finalist in 2010.
The Egyptian billionaire sold the department store in 2010 to the Qatar Investment Authority fund for 1.5 billion pounds (about $2.2 billion).
BBC, which collected the testimony of about twenty women for its documentary, announced on Thursday that it was contacted by 65 others who accuse the tycoon of rape, harassment or sexual assault.
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