case for Mohamed, The

Stewart Steven explains why Mr Al Fayed paid Neil Hamilton for help, and why the Harrods owner felt let down by the Tory MP

I MUST declare an interest. I am chairman of Liberty Publishing, a company owned by Mr Mohamed Al Fayed. Stephen Glover wrote in The Spectator last week that my attachment to Mr Al Fayed grew out of my `innate feelings for the underdog'. Money may not be everything but even Mr Al Fayed's closest friends would have some difficulty in seeing him as an 'underdog'. One cannot help but wonder if that is what he is, then where does that leave the rest of us?

What is at stake here is an issue of far greater importance to our national life than subjective feelings one way or another for the owner of Harrods. Having reached that stage in life where I can be genuinely independent of anyone, I have chosen to ally myself with Mr Al Fayed because I believe him to be the victim of an injustice so great that it is impossible, once one becomes aware of the facts, for a good man to turn aside.

What I find unacceptable is to live in a country where the state can with impunity stigmatise an individual without the procedural safeguards of a proper trial, in open court before judge and jury, and then not protest. On March 5 1985, the Al Fayed brothers acquired control of the House of Fraser chain of department stores, the flagship of which was Harrods. A few days later, on 14 March, Mr Norman Tebbit (as he was then), Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, announced that he would not be referring the purchase to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission because no `competition issues' were involved.

Readers will not need to be reminded how Tiny Rowland, who himself had been stalking Harrods for years, reacted to the news. Suffice to say that from that moment right through to 22 October 1993, when peace was finally declared, the two men were embroiled in the longest and most bitter corporate battle in the history of this country.

Mr Rowland had all the heavy guns. He was the proprietor of the Observer, which he used quite shamelessly to fight his corner and keep the issue alive in the public's mind. The chairman of Lonhro was Sir Edward du Cann, then a figure of considerable political weight who only a few years earlier had been seriously thought of by some as a potential leader of the Conservative Party. Tiny Rowland's tactics were to put such pressure upon the government that the deal would be eventually referred. Norman Tebbit was adamant. Despite all the `Dear Norman', `Yours ever, Edward' letters (interesting examples themselves of how MPs use their position to advance personal causes), there was simply no case to refer the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

Later in the year, Leon Brittan took over the DTI. On 6 November he wrote to du Cann - `Dear Edward', `Yours, Leon' with unwelcome news. None of the socalled evidence which Mr Rowland claimed he possessed showing that Mr Al Fayed was not the beneficial owner of Harrods, or that the money used for the purchase was not his own, could be substantiated.

'I must make it clear', wrote Leon Brittan '. . . that at present the director-general [of Fair Trading] is making further enquiries and that the possibility of a reference [to the Office of Fair Trading] is not under consideration. For the sake of completeness I should add that I see no grounds whatever for a Companies Act investigation.' And there by all that was right and proper the matter ought to have rested.

But Mr Rowland is not the man to give up easily. Ministers, MPs, newspaper editors were lobbied almost daily to have this decision overturned. The Observer was always there to supply a new twist to the saga.

While all of this was going on, Mohamed Al Fayed found himself outmanoeuvred at every turn. It was clear he needed political support of his own.

Lord King, perhaps the most prominent and successful businessman of the era, whom he consulted, pointed him in the way of Ian Greer. Mr Greer, says Mr Al Fayed, was happy to make his stable of political contacts available to Mr Al Fayed. Neil Hamilton and others agreed to put down questions, table early day motions and write letters. I don't think there is any dispute about this. All that is at issue is not so much whether, but how, they were paid for their services.

One can well understand that there are those who find the image of Mr Al Fayed personally stuffing envelopes with 50 notes an extremely unattractive one. Mr Al Fayed himself does not dissent from this view. But, he says, at the time he was advised this was the only way he could get the kind of help which he so desperately needed. His rival was using his considerable influence at Westminster to his great disadvantage and it was important that he find some way to respond. In truth, he says, when it was suggested to him that some politicians would need paying in cash, the demand in the greedy atmosphere of the mid-1980s did not seem to him to be particularly outrageous.

It was after all supposed, rightly or wrongly, by a sizable section of the business community that knighthoods and even peerages were `for sale' by making contributions to the Conservative Party. Paying MPs a few hundred pounds to answer questions seemed to Mr Al Fayed to be part of the system under which he was operating. He didn't like it or approve of it. It was simply what he found.

Events were to show that Mr Al Fayed was right to at least try to get some political support. This was because on 9 April 1987 Tiny Rowland's campaign was triumphantly concluded (or so it seemed at the time) when a third Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Paul Channon, announced that there would be an investigation into the acquisition of the House of Fraser by the Department of Trade inspectors after all. It was, to say the least, a curious decision.

Two Secretaries of State had decided on the evidence, while the issue of acquisition was current, that there should be no enquiry. Nothing other than the relentless campaigning of Tiny Rowland had happened to change the situation.

It has never been properly explained why Mr Al Fayed entertains dark suspicions involving the impropriety of individual ministers. The inspectors, who asked themselves the same question, concluded that the enquiry had been ordered simply because of two years of unrelenting pressure by Lonhro.

Personally I have always thought Mr Al Fayed wrong when he has claimed that corruption was involved, but equally so perverse was the judgment that I find it hard to blame him for so supposing. The investigation itself was a disgrace. I have read many of the papers involved and it is absolutely clear that Lonhro simply led the inspectors by the nose to the conclusion that it would have wished.

Tiny Rowland himself boasted in one letter to the inspectors: `It is clear, I think, that I am experienced in Monopoly Commission and Department of Trade hearings and have given evidence before six.' His various letters, quite astonishing in tone to the inspectors, show how well he knew his way around the system and how he turned that knowledge to his advantage.

It is only now becoming clear that virtually all of the so-called evidence which the inspectors relied upon was either supplied by Lonhro directly or was paid for, or otherwise suborned, by them. Not content with that, when Lonhro felt the investigation was not going according to the script they had for it, Tiny Rowland harassed and bullied the inspectors.

Here is just an example of that. In the middle of the enquiry Tiny Rowland wrote to one of the inspectors, Henry Brooke QC, in the following terms:

Your brother Mr Peter Brooke has in the last few days accepted a post as Chairman of the Conservative Party. ... It is clearly going to be embarrassing [to the Tories] when the decision to let the Fayeds buy House of Fraser without investigation ... has to be untangled.

I think you are now in a very partial position and should consider disqualifying yourself.

Mr Brooke is now a judge and would no doubt find a witness who dared write to him in such a fashion in contempt of court. But these enquiries are not courts and none of the safeguards available to those appearing before courts are available to them. Mr Al Fayed was not present when much of the 'evidence' which, was to incriminate him was put, and neither were his lawyers. There is considerable affidavit evidence now to show that great sums of money were paid to witnesses so that they should lie. Perjured evidence carried weight because neither Mr Al Fayed nor his representatives were present in order that it could be challenged. Documents were forged. If legal advisers had had access to them they would have been able to point out the many discrepancies.

We all know the result. Mr Al Fayed and his brothers were condemned in the most contemptuous terms. Those words have hung around their necks ever since and explain why Mr Al Fayed has become so vehement in his denunciation of the political class.

Mohamed Al Fayed says quite simply that the allegations made against him in the inspectors' report are not true. They were not tested in the open court and witnesses for the prosecution could not be cross-examined. Mr Major says that Neil Hamilton has been hanged by a kangaroo court. Maybe that is true, but what Mr Al Fayed and his brother had to deal with is something approaching a lynch mob.

I shall seek to justify that phrase. The Fayeds were not entitled to be present when witnesses gave testimony against them; they did not know what the witnesses were saying; Lonhro supplied the inspectors with literally thousands of pages of documents which they accepted uncritically. Counsel for the Fayeds were not entitled to attend evidence sessions by Lonhro witnesses; Lonhro's lawyers were. For example, when Mr Kashoggi gave evidence he did so in the presence of Lonhro's teams of lawyers. Lonhro's counsel even questioned Kashoggi before the inspectors. Mr Al Fayed's lawyers were not even in the room. Despite this, the report and the vehemence of its language were published to the world.

If the rule of law had been applied, the Attorney-General would surely have prosecuted, but instead he said there was no evidence available for use in an English court upon which the brothers could be arraigned. The Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry made the same judgment with regard to the civil courts, so no procedures were introduced disqualifying the Al Fayed brothers from acting as directors of companies. The Secretary of State put the matter as far as the Government was concerned into a kind of perspective when he told a Select Committee, '. . . the allegations in the report have not been substantiated in a court of law. We can all take our view from them and I think the balance of probability is extremely strongly that they are accurate, but there is no proof of this . . . I myself and, I think, most people are inclined to believe that the events revealed are correct, but we have no proof.'

So, on the basis of 'a balance of probability' and `no proof, the Government was content to allow the Al Fayed brothers to be strung up. There is a touch of the Nazi about all that - the rationale of the lynch mob through the ages. And where were the MPs he paid? They remained silent. No wonder the rage.

Mr Al Fayed has constantly sought to have his name cleared since the terribly flawed judgment was made against him a judgment based upon malicious falsehood and perjury. The inspectors, he would say, have stolen his name and destroyed his honour. Yet he has been denied the most elementary right to defend himself.

People often ask me what it is that Mohamed Al Fayed really wants. The answer is that he wants only that which I had always thought was given naturally to those fortunate enough to reside in these islands. It is to be judged as we would all wish to be judged, under the rule of law. It is that most basic of rights that has been denied him. And until he is satisfied his voice will never be stilled.

Copyright Spectator Oct 12, 1996
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved