Sawt Falasteen - US woman speaks of ordeal in France Al-Fayed trafficking probe

Pelham Spong, a 42-year-old from South Carolina, says Al-Fayed assaulted her in London when she was in her twenties.

She has told The Times she went to British police in 2017, several years before his death in 2023 aged 94, but claims he was not even questioned.

"There's my story, but I know around 30 women who are victims," she told AFP late last month in the French capital, where she is one of several plaintiffs in a French sex trafficking probe.

"Every time a woman tells me her story, the pain multiplies. All these stories live inside me," she added.

The alleged crimes of Al-Fayed first came to light in a BBC investigation in September 2024.

British police have said 154 victims have so far come forward to say the former owner of Harrods, as well as the Paris Ritz and Premier League club Fulham, abused them over a timeframe of more than 35 years.

But his accusers have been frustrated by the British probe.

French authorities last year began investigating Al-Fayed and his brother Salah, who died in 2010, amid allegations of a vast system of sex trafficking and abuse on French soil.

A psychologist spoke to Spong in late March to corroborate her testimony as part of the French investigation, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

Her lawyer confirmed this, saying it was a "key stage" in any case of alleged sexual violence.

The American says a recruiter approached her in Paris in August 2008 to offer her a job as an executive assistant for Al-Fayed.

She said she then spent "a week of professional orientation" in London and forced to undergo gynaecological exams as part of a medical check-up.

- 'Some kind of silk robe' -

She said Al-Fayed summoned her after 10 pm one evening.

"I'm in his office and he's sitting there in some kind of silk robe with a white tie," she said.

She said he informed her that her new job would include "having sexual relations with him".

"My whole heart went, 'Oh fuck!' But I laughed," she said, because she was wanted to believe it was a joke.

"I'm serious. You're going to make love to me," he allegedly insisted.

"I replied that I couldn't do that. He started to be more aggressive and told me, 'God gave you a brain. God gave you beauty. Why don't you use them?' As if I were stupid for not using my body to get ahead in life," Spong said.

She has accused Al-Fayed of then forcibly kissing her.

She says she remained in the recruitment process because her "survival instinct" kicked in, and she believed she could convince him to employ her without having to sleep with him. But it was in vain and she refused the job.

In her complaint filed with French authorities seen by AFP, Spong has accused the management of the Paris Ritz of being "aware that the hotel was being used as a base from which women were to be interviewed and selected to be sent to England to be sexually assaulted by Mr Fayed".

The Ritz in February told AFP that it was "deeply saddened by the testimonies and the allegations of abuse" and that it is "ready to fully cooperate with the judicial authorities".

A.Suleiman--SF-PST