LONDON (AP) — British police watchdogs will investigate whether the London force bungled its handling of sex crimes allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, the late owner of upmarket department store Harrods.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said Wednesday that it will oversee a probe by the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Professional Standards into whether opportunities were missed to bring the wealthy businessman to justice.
“There is widespread public concern around this case, with a significant number of allegations reported over many years while Mr. Al Fayed was still alive,” said Steve Noonan, director of operations at the conduct watchdog. “It’s important that an investigation is carried out into these complaints to identify if there were any missed opportunities or failures by officers to properly investigate these reports made back in 2008.”
Since the BBC broadcast claims by several former Harrods employees in September, police have been reviewing multiple allegations of rape or sexual assault against Al Fayed, who died in 2023 at the age of 94. The Metropolitan Police is currently reviewing 21 allegations that were made before Al Fayed died, and in total more than 100 women have contacted police to say they were sexually abused by the tycoon.
Police and Harrods executives have faced questions about why action wasn’t taken against Al Fayed while he was alive. He was questioned by detectives in 2008 over the alleged sexual abuse of a 15-year-old, and police twice passed files of evidence about him to prosecutors. He was never charged.
The Egypt-born businessman moved to Britain in the 1960s and bought Harrods, a London landmark, 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 sold Harrods in 2010 to a company owned by the state of Qatar through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority.
FILE - Egyptian businessman and Ritz hotel owner Mohammed Al Fayed poses with his hotel staff in Paris, June 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former FBI informant who fabricated a story about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepting bribes that became central to Republicans’ impeachment effort was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison.
Alexander Smirnovpleaded guilty last month in Los Angeles federal court to tax evasion and lying to the FBI about the phony bribery scheme in what prosecutors say was an effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
Smirnov, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, falsely claimed to his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid then-Vice President Biden and his son $5 million each around 2015.
Smirnov's explosive claim in 2020 came after he expressed "bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, according to prosecutors. In reality, investigators found Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Burisma starting in 2017 — after Biden's term as vice president.
Prosecutors noted that Smirnov's false claim “set off a firestorm in Congress” when it resurfaced years later as part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden, a Democrat who defeated Republican then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Biden administration dismissed the House impeachment effort as a “stunt.”
Before Smirnov’s arrest, Republicans had demanded the FBI release the unredacted form documenting the unverified allegations, though they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm if they were true.
"In committing his crimes he betrayed the United States, a country that showed him nothing but generosity, including conferring on him the greatest honor it can bestow, citizenship," Justice Department special counsel David Weiss' team wrote in court papers. "He repaid the trust the United States placed in him to be a law-abiding naturalized citizen and, more specifically, that one of its premier law enforcement agencies placed in him to tell the truth as a confidential human source, by attempting to interfere in a Presidential election."
Smirnov will get credit for the time he has served behind bars since his arrest last February in the case accusing him of lying to the FBI. Prosecutors in November brought new tax charges alleging he concealed millions of dollars of income he earned between 2020 and 2022.
Smirnov's lawyers had sought no more than four years behind bars, noting the “substantial assistance" he provided to the U.S. government as an FBI informant for more than a decade. Smirnov's lawyers noted in court papers that he suffers from serious health issues related to his eyes and argue that a lengthy sentence would “unnecessarily prolong his suffering.”
“Mr. Smirnov has learned a very grave lesson and proffers to this Honorable Court that he will not find himself on this side of the law again,” attorneys Richard Schonfeld and David Chesnoff told the judge in court papers.
Smirnov was prosecuted by Weiss, who also brought gun and tax charges against Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was supposed to be sentenced in December after being convicted at a trial in the gun case and pleading guilty to tax charges. But he was pardoned by his father, who said he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”
In seeking a lighter sentence, Smirnov's lawyers wrote in court papers that both Hunter Biden and President-elect Trump — who was charged in two federal cases by a different special counsel — “have walked free and clear of any meaningful punishment.”
Special counsel Jack Smith abandoned the two federal cases against Trump — accusing him of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida — after Trump's presidential victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Follow the AP's coverage of Hunter Biden at https://apnews.com/hub/hunter-biden.
FILE - In this courtroom sketch Defendant Alexander Smirnov speaks in Federal court in Los Angeles, Feb. 26, 2024. (William T. Robles via AP, File)
