Editing Mohamed Al-Fayed (section)

==Early life==
Fayed was born on 27 January 1929 in the [[Roshdy]] neighbourhood of [[Alexandria]], in the [[Kingdom of Egypt]],<ref>{{cite book |title=Who's Who |date=2008 |location=London |publisher=A & C Black |isbn=978-0-7136-8555-8}}</ref> the eldest son of an Egyptian primary school teacher from [[Asyut]]. His year of birth has been disputed.<ref name="BBC20080407">{{cite web |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7248639.stm|title=Profile of Mohamed Al Fayed |date=7 April 2008 |access-date=3 November 2021 |website=[[BBC News]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428183025/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7248639.stm |archive-date=28 April 2021 |url-status=live|language=en}}</ref> The [[Department of Trade]] in 1988 found his date of birth was 27 January 1929.<ref name="BBC20080407" /><ref>{{cite web |last1=Trelford |first1=Donald |title=Time to set the record straight on the Observer and the Harrods takeover |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/may/16/observer-harrods-takeover-mohamed-fayed |website=The Observer |access-date=19 September 2024 |date=15 May 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/02/mohamed-al-fayed-perennial-outsider-savvy-businessman-and-grief-broken-father |access-date=19 September 2024 |title=Mohamed al Fayed: Perennial outsider, savvy businessman and grief-broken father |newspaper=The Observer |date=2 September 2023 |last1=Anthony |first1=Andrew }}</ref> His brothers Ali and Salah were his business colleagues.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wild |first=Abigail |date=10 January 2004 |title=Beset by secrets and lies Profile: Mohamed al Fayed |work=[[Sunday Herald]] |location=Glasgow |url=https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12518304.Beset_by_secrets_and_lies_Profile__Mohamed_al_Fayed_A_high_profile_bid_to_become_a_British_citizen_and_the_death_of_his_son__Dodi__have_thrust_the_Egyptian_tycoon_into_the_spotlight__but_who_is_the_real_Mohamed_al_Fayed__By_Abigail_Wild/ |access-date=22 April 2018 |archive-date=22 April 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180422202414/http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12518304.Beset_by_secrets_and_lies_Profile__Mohamed_al_Fayed_A_high_profile_bid_to_become_a_British_citizen_and_the_death_of_his_son__Dodi__have_thrust_the_Egyptian_tycoon_into_the_spotlight__but_who_is_the_real_Mohamed_al_Fayed__By_Abigail_Wild/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

At the age of nineteen Al-Fayed was selling bottles of [[Coca-Cola]] on the streets of Alexandria, and sold [[Singer sewing machine]]s at the age of twenty-one.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 9.</ref> In 1952 Al-Fayed was hired by a friend, Tousson El Barrawi, and the seventeen-year-old [[Adnan Khashoggi]] for their furniture import business.<ref>Bower 1998, p.9.</ref> Al-Fayed excelled at the business and impressed Adnan's father, Mohamed Kashoggi, the personal physician of the [[King of Saudi Arabia]]. In the early 1950s Al-Fayed travelled to Europe for the first time, visiting France, Italy and Switzerland.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 13.</ref> Returning to Egypt, Al-Fayed confessed to his wife, [[Samira Kashoggi]], Adnan Kashoggi's sister, that he had had an affair, and she demanded a divorce.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 14.</ref> Al-Fayed terminated his partnership with Adnan Kashoggi, and secretly withdrew £100,000 from Kashoggi's Al Nasr trading company. Kashoggi issued a writ against Al-Fayed for the return of the money, and later agreed with Al-Fayed to forgive the money and other loans and debts in return for Samira's freedom to remarry and return to Egypt.<ref>Bower 1998, p.18.</ref> Following Egyptian [[Gamal Abdel Nasser|President Nasser]]'s threats to expropropriate foreign businesses, Al-Fayed was able to take control of a small shipping company, owned by Leon Carasso, who wished to emigrate.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 16.</ref> Carasso later claimed that Al-Fayed had defaulted on the agreed payment for his business.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 17.</ref> Fayed also acquired interests in other transport companies at favourable prices. After Nasser ordered the confiscation of Egyptian property in 1961, Al-Fayed transferred ownership of his Middle Eastern Navigation Company to Genoa in Italy.<ref>Bower 1998, p. 19.</ref><ref name="Times20100510">{{cite news |last=Lindsay |first=Robert |date=10 May 2010 |title=Mohamed Al Fayed — the outsider with a taste for confrontation |url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/scotland-travel/mohamed-al-fayed-the-outsider-with-a-taste-for-confrontation-n9tsq2qp8z0 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170709125823/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mohamed-al-fayed-the-outsider-with-a-taste-for-confrontation-n9tsq2qp8z0 |archive-date=9 July 2017 |access-date=25 January 2018 |work=[[The Times]] |language=en |issn=0140-0460}}</ref>

On 12 June 1964, Al-Fayed arrived in [[Haiti]], then under the control of [[François "Papa Doc" Duvalier]]. Al-Fayed entered the country on a Kuwaiti passport, and introduced himself as [[Sheikh]] Mohamed Fayed.<ref name="Saturday Night">{{Cite news|last=Sanger|first=Julian|title=Life before Harrods|url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=978278&lang=en-gb&site=eds-live&scope=site|magazine=[[Saturday Night (magazine)|Saturday Night]]|date =June 1998|accessdate=21 September 2024}}</ref><ref name="maureen-orth" /> Shortly after his arrival, Duvalier cancelled a ten-year contract with a U.S. company that gave them monopoly control over Haiti's oil industry and signed a similar contract with Al-Fayed for fifty years.<ref name="Saturday Night" /> Al-Fayed also worked with the geologist [[George de Mohrenschildt]]. He terminated his stay in Haiti six months later when a sample of "crude oil" provided by Haitian associates proved to be low-grade [[molasses]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Alex |last=Tunzelmann |title=Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean |publisher=Henry Holt and Co., 2011 |page=[https://archive.org/details/redheatconspirac0000vont/page/330 330f]|isbn=978-0-8050-9067-3 |title-link=Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean |date=29 March 2011}}</ref> Al-Fayed promised to use his connections in Dubai to help bring investment to the Caribbean island, if they allowed him to build an oil refinery, and develop the wharf at [[Port-au-Prince]].<ref name="maureen-orth" /> Al-Fayed had exclusive control over the collection of fees for docking, unloading, and loading at Haiti's main port, and this caused resentment in the Haitian shipping industry. Al-Fayed was 'tapped' for $30,000 by Duvalier, but rather than pay, and fearful of the growing anger of the shipping agents, he left Haiti in December 1964. Fayed later claimed that the Haitian government owed him $2 million. The 1988 [[Department of Trade and Industry (United Kingdom)|Department of Trade and Industry]] (DTI) report on Al-Fayed's background stated "we have no doubt at all that Mohamed Fayed perpetrated a substantial deceit on the government and people of Haiti in 1964 ... he deprived the harbor authority of over US $100,000 of money it could ill-afford to lose" <ref name="Saturday Night" />

Fayed then moved to England, where he lived in central London.<ref name="Times20100510" />