Throughout the summer and fall of 2021, The Times, The Mail on Sunday and The Telegraph had a series of reports about Prince Charles and his shady fundraising practices for his foundation. Charles had used his position to personally guarantee and give out honours to shady foreign nationals in exchange for large “donations” to his foundation. One of the biggest donors and a recipient of a CBE was a Saudi national named Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz. Charles’s dealings with Mahfouz in particular are why the Met opened up an investigation into Charles, his foundation and his fundraising practices this week. Charles crossed many ethical and legal lines in his pursuit of donations from Mahfouz, and there were a great number of very concerning issues.
Last December, Charles tried to throw Harry under the bus re: Mahfouz. Clarence House actively leaked information about how Harry met Mahfouz first and Harry personally raised thousands of dollars for Sentebale from Mahfouz. The problem was that even in the Clarence House-approved narrative, Harry came across as a million times more ethical than his father. Harry quickly grew concerned with the kind of access Mahfouz wanted, and by 2014, Harry severed their relationship. Harry even made a statement about the reporting last December, explicitly saying that he grew wary of Mahfouz and his demands, and that he warned other people about Mahfouz. Charles continued to pursue Mahfouz as a donor for years, giving him more and more in exchange for donations. Well, funny story. Clarence House is trying desperately to drag Harry back into this mess now that the Met has opened an investigation.
Prince Harry could be quizzed as a witness in the cash for honours investigation launched by Scotland Yard, it emerged today. The Duke of Sussex was accused of throwing his father under the bus last year after claiming he raised concerns about a Saudi billionaire donor. Charles’ senior aide Michael Fawcett was forced to resign as head of The Prince’s Foundation over his role in the scandal.
In December Harry said he had ‘severed ties’ with Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz a year before Prince Charles presented the controversial Saudi billionaire with a CBE. Clarence House has repeatedly said that Charles had ‘no knowledge’ of the ‘cash for access’ allegations, but it did not comment on whether Harry raised concerns with him about Mr Mahfouz.
Now the Metropolitan Police are investigating, their detectives could choose to question him over what his concerns were, and who he told in 2015, according to the Mirror. MailOnline has asked Prince Harry to comment. Harry said he had ‘concerns’ over the businessman’s ‘motives’. He made the comments after it was revealed that he had held a private meeting with Mr Mahfouz, who has given tens of thousands of pounds to charities associated with the duke.
Harry is said to have become concerned about Mr Mahfouz in 2014 and wound down their relationship the following year, having met him twice. But in an extraordinary statement, Harry said just before Christmas that he had no involvement in what he described as the ‘CBE scandal’, insisted he had concerns about the Saudi businessman’s ‘motives’ and claimed he ‘expressed his concerns’ about him.
[From The Daily Mail]
I’m sitting here laughing at the memory of how Charles ran around to every friendly journalist, whining about how Harry threw him under the bus and how Charles feared the CBE scandal would make it into Harry’s memoir. Hilarious. As for Harry being “questioned” or interviewed in the Met’s probe… if it happens, it happens. If Harry is questioned about his association with Mahfouz, I assume it would be like “the guy donated some money in exchange for some personal attention, but when it got tricky, I ended the relationship. I have no idea what my father was thinking.” That’s it in a nutshell. Harry could probably just type that out and send it to the Met.
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