Photographs of Mr Abdulaziz in 'compromising' positions were on his phone. The prince also claimed he was heterosexual and had a girlfriend in Saudi Arabia, but he had booked appointments with at least two male escorts and one gay masseur, and looked at hundreds of images of men on gay websites. Saud tried to cover up the true nature of his relationship with his servant, claiming they were 'friends and equals' but a porter at the £259-a-night Landmark Hotel where they were staying said Mr Abdulaziz was treated 'like a slave'.
When he was then taken to Paddington Green police station and arrested, Saudi officials tried to claim he had diplomatic immunity but this was scotched by a check of Foreign Office records. The prince claimed he had woken in the afternoon to find he could not revive his friend - now stiff with rigor mortis - and explained his injuries by saying he had been attacked and robbed of 3,000 euros in London's Edgware Road a few weeks before.ĭetectives took him to the area to try to retrace the route but as they did so other officers were reviewing CCTV at the hotel - and found disturbing footage of Saud mercilessly attacking his aide in a lift on January 22. It was only about 12 hours later, after chauffeur Abadi Abadella received a call from Saudi Arabia telling him to go to the hotel, that the body was discovered in room 312. He calmly ordered two glasses of milk and bottled water on room service as he set about dragging the body into the bed and trying to clean up the blood.
The prince then spent hours on the phone to a mysterious contact in Saudi Arabia trying to work out how to cover up what he had done. Jurors heard that by the early hours of February 15, Mr Abdulaziz was left so worn down and injured - having suffered a 'cauliflower' ear and swollen eye from previous assaults - that he simply let Saud kill him without a fight.
The murder of Mr Abdulaziz was the final act in a 'deeply abusive' master-servant relationship in which the prince carried out frequent attacks on his aide 'for his own personal gratification'. Under human rights laws, a prisoner cannot be deported to a country allowing the death penalty unless assurances have been made to prevent the execution. It confirmed he would be 'entitled to apply for asylum' if he was deemed at risk after being released from jail. If he ever returns to his home country he faces the possibility of execution - not because of the killing but because being gay is a capital offence there.īefore the trial, the Foreign Office warned the royal could be prosecuted by his family under sharia law for causing them 'shame'. In court his lawyers had tried to cover up evidence of his homosexuality. The prince, standing in the dock with his arms crossed, showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down. 'It would be wrong for me to sentence you either more severely or more leniently because of your membership of the Saudi royal family.' 'No-one in this country is above the law.
Sentencing him today, Mr Justice Bean said: 'It is very unusual for a prince to be in the dock on a murder charge. Convicted: Gay killer Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud was fuelled on Champagne and 'sex on the beach' cocktails when he attacked his servant