Al Fayed wins large libel award

MOHAMED AL FAYED and Harrods yesterday accepted substantial undisclosed damages over an article which alleged that they were in some way connected with a plot to supply terrorists with enriched uranium.

Solicitor Laurence Harris told Mr Justice Eady at the High Court in London that the allegations, made in The Sunday Telegraph in May 2002, were wholly untrue.

The “serious and defamatory” comments repeated allegations previously raised in a French newspaper which had recently been ordered by a French court to publish an apology and pay damages.

The article was accompanied by a photograph of Harrods and a large photograph which superimposed Mr Al Fayed against drums of enriched uranium stored in Kazakhstan.

Solicitor Robert Clinton, for the Telegraph Group, said that it sincerely apologised and fully accepted that any impression given that Mr Al Fayed or Harrods were involved in any criminal or improper activity was entirely false.

It sincerely regretted publishing the allegations which it accepted had caused great distress.