By Shirley Farmer 
60 women now accuse the former owner of Harrods department store in London, Mohamed Al-Fayed, of sexual assault and rape, nearly double the 37 women last week, the lawyers representing them said in a statement today.
“So far, we have responded to more than 200 requests and letters from around the world. We confirm that we now represent 60 survivors in our work, with more to come,” they stressed, highlighting the “increasingly international” scope of this issue. .
In addition to Harrods, the lawyers pointed to “credible evidence of sexual assaults at other properties and companies owned by Al-Fayed, including Fulham Football Club in England, which he bought in 1997.”
They add: “We expected violations to occur wherever Mohamed Al-Fayed moved, and unfortunately this is true.”
Dozens of women, some of them minors at the time, accused Mohamed Al-Fayed, who died in August 2023 at the age of 94, of rape and sexual assault.
At least five people have claimed they were raped by the father of Princess Diana's last partner, Dodi, who died with her in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.
Since the BBC's first revelations a week ago, the legal team at Justice for Harrods Survivors, which will take civil action against the store, has analyzed numerous submissions from alleged victims, witnesses and “people currently working at Harrods”.
The lawyers claimed their clients had “lost all confidence in Harrods” and called again for an “independent and transparent process” to assess and adjudicate the allegations.
On Thursday, the store's management admitted that there was a “toxic culture” at Harrods when Mohamed Al-Fayed was its owner, and accused him of “running the company as if it were his personal fiefdom.”
As a result, the London Police appealed to all victims of Mohamed Al-Fayed to file a complaint, and expressed its readiness to investigate whether it is possible to incriminate other people in this case, stressing that it is not possible to prosecute a deceased person.