Obituary: Mohamed Al Fayed

Mohamed Al Fayed, who has died aged 94, rose from the streets of Alexandria to owning one of the most famous department stores in the world.

But behind the success story lay a complex man whose machinations shook the British establishment to its very core.

Allegations of impropriety brought about the downfall of three Conservative politicians.

And he continued to insist that the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, was murder - a claim dismissed by both French and British investigators and an inquest jury.

He was born plain Mohamed Fayed in Alexandria, Egypt, but his birth date has been the subject of conjecture.

In his self-approved entry in Who's Who it is listed as January 1933 without a precise date - but when he took part in a Department of Trade inquiry it was officially recorded as 27 January 1929.

He began his business life hawking bottles of fizzy drink on the streets but gained a lucky break in the mid-1950s when he met and married the sister of the Saudi millionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.

Khashoggi gave his new brother-in-law a job which granted him access to influential circles in London and the Gulf.

By the 1960s, the Egyptian was a wealthy man who was wheeling and dealing with everyone from Arab sheiks to Papa Doc Duvalier, Haiti's notorious dictator.

He had founded his own shipping company in Egypt and become the financial adviser to the Sultan of Brunei.