MOHAMED Al-Fayed had begun to accept the death of his son Dodi and Princess Diana in a car crash was an accident, a former close aide said yesterday.
The Harrods tycoon had softened his attitude towards the Royal Family in his final years — having also previously accepted an olive branch from Di’s son Prince William.
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The U-turn came after decades of acrimony which saw the former Fulham football club chief blast the royals as a “Dracula” family.
Ex-PR executive Chester Stern, who represented the billionaire from 2001 to 2004 and remained a friend, told The Sun on Sunday: “He backed off it being a direct conspiracy led by Prince Philip in more recent years.
“This suggests he was quietly beginning to accept it was an accident.”
And it comes as royal expert Ingrid Seward said the Queen once suggested enemies of Mr Al-Fayed could have been behind the 1997 crash by “greasing the brakes”.
She claimed that on hearing of the fatal accident, “her immediate thought was that the enemies of Mohamed were unable to get to the father so had targeted the son”.
She added: “She thought they had ‘greased the brakes’ as she put it in her old-fashioned parlance.”
Egyptian-born Mr Al-Fayed died aged 94 on Wednesday — the eve of the 26th anniversary of the crash in Paris that killed Dodi, 42, Princess Diana, 36, and Ritz security chief Henri Paul, who was driving.
The tycoon was reportedly buried at the family estate in Oxted, Surrey, next to Dodi.
His son had been dating Diana when they were killed.
Mr Al-Fayed had blamed the Royal Family for the tragedy and claimed Prince Philip was behind a “death plot” along with the British Security Services.
In 2008, inquest jurors ruled Diana and Dodi were unlawfully killed in the crash.
Former aide Mr Stern said: “He spoke to me about it all the time. It was a constant sort of feature in his life, it was almost an obsession.
“But he mellowed in his view as he got older. He had backed off it being a direct conspiracy led by Prince Philip in more recent years and just spoke about an ‘Establishment’ conspiracy.
“He stopped being so vocal about it all after the inquest.
“He didn’t publicly accept that it was an accident but he may have privately accepted it.
“The fact he stopped pushing the conspiracy theory and Prince Philip would suggest he was quietly beginning to come to terms with it.
“However, he did maintain until very recently his French legal action against the paparazzi who chased the car as that was very important to him, to get somebody legally responsible for the crash.”
In 2007, it was reported Prince William held out an olive branch when he invited Mr Al-Fayed’s daughters Camilla and Jasmine to join a memorial service for Diana.
Mr Stern added: “Mohamed was very fond of William and they got on well.
“So, the only member of the Royal Family who might have maintained contact with him in his later years would be William.”
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He added: “William and Harry were very fond of him and Mohamed liked them a great deal.
“As sons of Diana, he absolved both of them from any animosity he felt towards Prince Philip and Charles.
“They had that last holiday with him on the yacht with Diana and he used to have lunch with her at Kensington Palace when the boys were present.”
It emerged yesterday that in 2015, Mr Al-Fayed, who married twice and was a father of five, had given an interview to Keith Allen for a planned TV documentary that was never aired in which he accused MI6 and Prince Philip.
In it he claimed: “Only when they saw that my son was going out with Diana and Diana fell in love with him — they have murdered my son and Princess Diana.”
Royal expert Phil Dampier said he believed Mr Al-Fayed’s public attacks were sparked by his own “enormous guilt” over the crash.
He said: “Deep down, he felt enormous guilt that it was his own security that cocked things up.”
Paying tribute to Mr Al-Fayed, TalkTV presenter Piers Morgan said: “An extraordinary tour de force of a man who never got over the death of his beloved son Dodi in the crash that also killed Diana.
“Mohamed wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea and he was a flawed, complex character, but I liked him.”
Meanwhile, pictures emerged on Friday of Mr Al-Fayed’s funeral, which took place at the Central London Mosque at Regent’s Park.
Smail Beldjaghlouli, 52, a security guard, who was there, said: “It was very sad. The Imam said prayers for the great man.
“We all paid our respects and wished blessings upon him.”
The General Federation of Egyptians Abroad said a public ceremony will be held this week.
Mr Al-Fayed had owned Premier League club Fulham between 1997 and 2013.
The team’s players wore black armbands during yesterday’s match at Manchester City, while banners paying tribute to him from fans were seen in the stands.
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Harrods buy led to feud
By Ingrid Seward, Royal Correspondent
IT was Prince Philip, not Princess Diana, who first met the flashy figure of Mohamed Al-Fayed shortly after he bought Harrods in 1985.
Mr Al-Fayed immediately took over the House of Fraser’s sponsorship of the Royal Windsor Horse Show’s carriage-driving event, which was Philip’s own speciality sport.
Prince Philip never liked Al-Fayed and when they met socially, he was brusque to the point of rudeness.
Al-Fayed was a thorn in the flesh of the Establishment, whose bribery of MPs contributed to the downfall of John Major’s government.
He would have made a controversial father-in-law to a British princess — just as his son Dodi would have been an unpopular stepfather for a future king in Prince William.
However tragic Diana’s death was, Philip hoped he would never have to hear the name Mohamed Al-Fayed again.
But in 2000, the Egyptian ordered the removal of all the royal warrants from Harrods. One was from Philip, who had let it be known he did not want it renewed.
Then in 2008, at Diana’s inquest, Al-Fayed claimed Philip and son Charles plotted to assassinate Diana so Charles could marry “crocodile wife” Camilla.
Of Philip, he said: “You want to have his original name? It ends with ‘Frankenstein’.”
