Denmark's king marks reconstruction of famed landmark badly damaged by fire

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s King Frederik on Thursday laid a foundation stone to mark the reconstruction of Copenhagen’s iconic Old Stock Exchange — the 400-year-old harborside landmark — that was partly destroyed by a fire in April.

Frederik squeezed in a square sandstone with his monogram weighing about 60 kilograms (132.3 pounds) in a red brick wall on a corner of the Old Stock Exchange. That marked the official start of the reconstruction.

In the early morning of April 16, the blaze tore through Boersen, as it is known in Danish, collapsing its green copper roof and iconic dragon-tail spire. Two days later, a large section of the building’s outer wall collapsed inwards. The site took months to clean up as some 1,000 tons of debris had to be removed.

Considered a leading example of the Dutch Renaissance style in Denmark, it opened in 1624 as a trading place, nine years after construction had begun. Denmark’s Chamber of Commerce, the building’s owner, has said it wants it to be as it once was. The plan is to use the same materials as when the building was erected.

Initial plans had been to mark the building’s anniversary after a thorough renovation with festivities but those plans were changed following the fire. Now only about 45% of the Old Stock Exchange still stands. An old firewall stopped the blaze from spreading.

“Today we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Stock Exchange! And we mark that with the laying of the foundation stone by King Frederik, which is the start of a new chapter: The rebuilding of Boersen,” Brian Mikkelsen, head of the Chamber of Commerce, wrote on X.

It is expected to take several years with no end date for now and no details about the costs. The owner has said it will foot the bill.

As the blaze raged, many, including ordinary people, ventured in to rescue artworks and around 90% of the cultural objects were rescued from the fire.

They have been stored in a modern warehouse northwest of Copenhagen, along with sculpted stones, bricks and wall parts. The aim is to reuse as many of the latter as possible, the Chamber of Commerce has said.

Some 800,000 handmade bricks have been ordered in Germany and the plan is to use between 800 and 1,000 trees from a Swedish Baltic Sea island.

“We must do everything to ensure that that tragedy does not repeat,” Culture Minister Christina Egelund said in a statement, as the Danish government announced that it would look into whether current regulations are sufficient to protect historic buildings.

Danish authorities have yet to reveal the cause of the fire, but it’s believed to have started on the building’s roof, which had been wrapped in scaffolding because of ongoing renovation work to be completed for its anniversary in 2024. The blaze was reminiscent of the April 2019 fire at the 800-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Lars Daugaard Jepsen, head of reconstruction at Denmark's Chamber of Commerce, peers through a window at Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

Workers clear rubble at Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

A window, blackened with soot, is seen at Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

Remains of Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building are seen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

Workers clear rubble at Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

Remains of Copenhagen's Old Stock Exchange building are seen through a broken glass window in Copenhagen, Denmark, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo James Brooks)

FILE -Firefighters work as smoke rise out of the Old Stock Exchange, Boersen, in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)

LONDON (AP) — The managing director of Harrods said Thursday the London department store is “deeply sorry” for failing employees who say they were sexually assaulted by late owner Mohamed Al Fayed. Police, meanwhile, said that over almost two decades, 19 women had made sex crime allegations against the businessman, who was never prosecuted.

Michael Ward, the store's boss, said it is clear Al Fayed “presided over a toxic culture of secrecy, intimidation, fear of repercussion and sexual misconduct.”

Five women have told the BBC they were raped by Al Fayed, who died last year aged 94, and several others allege acts of assault and physical violence. Lawyers for the accusers say they have been retained by 37 women and the list is growing.

Ward said he was “not aware of his (Al Fayed's) criminality and abuse” during the four years he worked for the Harrod's owner, though “rumors of his behavior circulated in the public domain.”

Al Fayed owned Harrods for a quarter century before selling it 2010 to a company owned by the state of Qatar through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority.

“We failed our colleagues and for that we are deeply sorry,” Ward said in a statement. He said Harrods had set up a “settlement process” for Al Fayed’s victims.

“This was a shameful period in the business’ history,” the statement said. “However, the Harrods of today is unrecognizable to Harrods under his ownership.”

London’s Metropolitan Police says 19 women made allegations against Al Fayed to the force between 2005 and 2023 — three allegations of rape, 15 of sexual assault and one related to trafficking.

Al Fayed was questioned by detectives in 2008 over the alleged sexual abuse of a 15-year-old, and in 2009 and 2015 police passed files of evidence about him to the Crown Prosecution Service.

He was never charged.

The force said on Thursday that it was reviewing the allegations to see whether there were any new lines of inquiry. Police encouraged victims to report abuse, saying that while Al Fayed was beyond the reach of the law, “we must ensure we fully explore whether any other individuals could be pursued for any criminal offences.”

Al Fayed’s family has not commented. The Egypt-born businessman moved to Britain in the 1960s and bought Harrods, an upmarket retail emporium in London’s tony Knightsbridge district, in the mid-1980s.

He became a well-known figure through his ownership of the store and the London soccer team Fulham. He was often in the headlines after his son Dodi was killed alongside Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Al Fayed spent years promoting the conspiracy theory that the royal family had arranged the accident because they did not approve of Diana dating an Egyptian.

An inquest concluded that Diana and Dodi died because of the reckless actions of their driver — an employee of the Ritz Hotel in Paris owned by Al Fayed — and paparazzi chasing the couple. Separate inquiries in the United Kingdom and France also concluded there was no conspiracy.

Three of Mr Al Fayed's accusers, left to right, Katherine (no surname given), Lindsay Mason and Gemma (no surname given), pose for a photograph after a press conference about the investigation and the legal claim against Harrods for failing to provide a safe system of work for their employees, at Kent House in Knightsbridge, London, Friday Sept. 20, 2024. (Yui Mok/PA via AP)

FILE -A general view of Harrods department store in London, July 1, 2020.(AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)