Egyptian father and Harrods-owner Mohamed al- Fayed Friday won a major victory in his long-running battle for transparency in the investigations of the death of his late son, Dodi, with Princess Diana, in Paris in August 1997.

In an unprecedented legal action, al-Fayed won a ruling at the High Court in London which overturned an earlier decision that an official British inquest into the deaths should sit without a jury.

Three senior judges Friday ordered that the coroner hearing the inquest "shall do so sitting with a jury."

When he started his legal action, 74-year-old al-Fayed said he wanted the "British people" to have the last word over his own belief that Diana and his son were murdered.

The princess, then 36, and Dodi al-Fayed, 42, died when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997 as they sped away from pursuing paparazzi.

Al-Fayed also owns the Ritz Hotel in Paris, from where Diana and Dodi started their fateful journey.

Commenting on the ruling, which comes ahead of the 10th anniversary of the couple's death, al-Fayed said: "This is not the end of the road, but an important step."

"The jury must now be allowed to hear the entirety of the evidence, but I fear there will be attempts to keep it from them. If so, that will be yet another battle I will have to fight," he said.