Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004

A Search for Truth Or Vengeance?

By HELEN GIBSON

Diana and Dodi smile from their intertwined gilded frames above a candlelit bronze fountain. On display beneath them, the ring Dodi gave the Princess and the wine glass she used during their final meal together in Paris are preserved inside an acrylic pyramid. Mohammed al Fayed's shrine to the pair, on the lower-ground floor of Harrods, is the emotional if cheesy tribute of a man devastated by his son's death. It also serves as a permanent reminder, as if anyone needed it, that before her death it was to the Fayeds that Britain's most popular royal had turned for love and friendship.

Who is the man most responsible for pushing the Diana conspiracy theories? Al Fayed has wanted to belong in Britain since arriving in the country in the early 1970s. Born 71 to 75 years ago — the records vary — to a poor schoolteacher in Alexandria, Egypt, the ambitious young man made money working for arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and for the Sultan of Brunei. He was wealthy when he arrived in London, and in 1985, six years after he and his brother acquired the Ritz Hotel in Paris, hit the headlines with an acrimonious takeover of Harrods, the store synonymous with upper-class Britain.

Ownership of the store, however, failed to gain him the British passport he yearns for. A government inquiry concluded that al Fayed had misrepresented his wealth and background in making the bid, and his application for citizenship was turned down. Although he proved his solvency, the passport still eludes him.

"Why won't they give me a passport?" he once asked. "I own Harrods and employ thousands of people in this country." He has also given millions to charity, and in 1996 bought the failing satirical magazine Punch, trying expensively but vainly to keep that British institution afloat. Next he bought London's ailing Fulham Football Club, and again parted with tens of millions in restoring it to its former place among the nation's best teams. But al Fayed was doomed to remain an outsider: in 1999 then Home Secretary Jack Straw refused another citizenship request, saying al Fayed had not shown himself to be of the necessary "good character."

Ironically, Straw's Labour Party had reason to be grateful to al Fayed. In 1994, he disclosed that he had paid two Conservative ministers to ask questions in the Commons that related to his interests. The ensuing scandal wrecked their careers, badly hurt the Tories and contributed to Labour's victory in 1997.

When he announced last year that he was leaving to live in Switzerland, al Fayed said it was with a heavy heart because Britain was a country "I have come to love very deeply." It is a love that remains largely unrequited.