London luxury department store Harrods said Saturday it was taking down a statue of the late Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed and returning it to former owner Mohamed Al Fayed. Al Fayed commissioned the bronze statue, which shows his son and Diana holding hands and releasing a bird, after they were killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. It remained there after he sold Harrods to the investment arm of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund in 2010. “We are very proud to have played our role in celebrating the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed at Harrods and to have welcomed people from around the world to visit the memorial for the past 20 years,” he said. A spokesman for the Al Fayed family told The Times newspaper it was “grateful” to Qatar Holdings for preserving the memorial of the couple, adding: “It is now time to bring them home.”AFP

Source: Punch January 13, 2018 11:37 UTC