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U.K. judge orders huge payout for woman claiming to be 'secret wife' of late Saudi king
The Associated Press
First posted: Tuesday, November 03, 2015 12:54 PM EST | Updated: Tuesday, November 03, 2015 01:20 PM EST
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, left, shakes hands with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz in Jeddah in this file photo. (Andy Clark/REUTERS)
LONDON -- A British judge on Tuesday ordered a huge financial payout for a woman who claims she was the "secret wife" of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.
Judge Peter Smith ruled that Palestinian-born Janan Harb, 68, should receive more than 15 million pounds ($23 million) and two expensive apartments in London's Chelsea neighbourhood that had been promised her.
The High Court judge said her claim to having been promised a financial settlement by one of the king's sons was "credible."
Harb had told the court she secretly married the king in 1968 when he was still a prince. She testified that he had promised to look after her financially for the rest of her life. Harb had told the court the king's family opposed their marriage because she was a Christian. She converted to Islam right before the marriage.
Her testimony indicated she had been promised the financial settlement by Prince Abdul Aziz, the son of another of the king's wives, when he met with her at London's posh Dorchester Hotel in 2003 when the king was seriously ill.
The court did not rule on whether she and the king had ever married, but on whether the prince had promised her a cash settlement and the luxury London properties.
The prince denied the assertion in written statements, but refused to testify in person or be cross-examined, earning a contempt of court citation. He was ordered to make a 25,000 pound charity donation.
The judge told the prince's lawyer his case had been severely damaged by the prince's refusal to appear because the case revolved around whether his or Harb's statements were believable. He also criticized Harb for her lavish lifestyle and gambling debts.
Harb said she was "very relieved" by the decision Tuesday and criticized the prince for not honouring his father's wishes.
"This has been 12 years of misery for me. I am very happy with British justice," Harb said.
The prince's lawyer did not immediately return a request for comment.
Janan Harb with the late King Fahd. The Christian-born beauty was 19 when she claims she wed the then-prince.
A woman who claims to be the secret wife of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has won a payout worth more than GBP20 million (HK$239 million) to honour a promise that she would be looked after for the rest of her life.
Palestinian-born Janan Harb, 68, claimed she had lived a cosseted life in the embrace of one of the world’s richest and most secretive families for more than 20 years and had married Fahd in 1968.
The Saudi royal family has fought her claims through the high court for more than a decade, insisting that no official marriage took place and that she was owed nothing.
On Monday, however, a London High Court judge ruled in Harb’s favour, saying she was entitled to more than GBP15million plus the value of two expensive west London properties.
Mr Justice Peter Smith also ordered Fahd’s son, Prince Abdul Aziz, to pay legal costs estimated at more than GBP1million.
The prince, who did not attend the court hearings to counter Harb’s claims, must pay damages of GBP12million with interest of GBP3.25million for leaving her without her money for years.
Smith also ordered the prince to transfer two luxury flats in Chelsea worth around GBP5million to her name, making a total award of GBP20.25million.
As she left court, Harb said: “I am very very happy. This has been 12 years of misery for me. I am very happy with British justice, otherwise they wanted me to go to Saudi Arabia where they could have stoned me.
“I am very relieved and only wish the prince could have honoured what his father wanted and stopped delaying things. He is just being very mean.”
Harb told the court she had secretly married Fahd in 1968, when she was 19 and he was still a prince and his country’s interior minister.
Born to Christian hoteliers in Ramallah, she said she had met her future husband the year before in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was working as a translator at the Venezuelan embassy.
She said she had accompanied him on trips to Europe and the US, and that she had been introduced to world leaders and wealthy businessmen.
She has also said that although Fahd had other wives, he continued to keep in touch with her after she married a second man, a Lebanese lawyer, in 1974.
By the late 1970s, Harb also had a home in London and two daughters and had set up an aerobics franchise, opening branches in Europe and the Middle East.
Fahd would occasionally fly to London in his private jet to visit her, but their marriage was dictated by his schedule, friends said.
Harb has said she continued a relationship with Fahd until he suffered a stroke in 1995, and that his advisers were enraged when it emerged that she had abandoned Islam to become a Scientologist.
Monday’s court case rested upon her claim that Abdul Aziz, the son of another of Fahd’s wives, had met her at the Dorchester hotel in London on June 20, 2003 when the king was seriously ill.
She said he agreed in the early hours of the morning to pay her GBP12million and transfer two flats to her name, to honour his father’s promise of lifelong financial support.
The prince made written statements to the court denying her claim, but Smith ruled that there had been an agreement.
He said Harb has received GBP5m from the Saudis in the past, but that she has used GBP3m of it to pay off debts, including an GBP85,000 gambling debt, before spending the balance within two years on what he described as her lavish lifestyle.
He said: “It is fair to say that she maintained a high maintenance lifestyle as she says, to which she had become accustomed whilst being supported by the late king.”
Smith added that the GBP5million “was plainly payment to buy her silence in respect of her relationship with the late king”.
He also said that while her evidence was unsure and at times bizarre, he believed she was telling the truth about the 2003 agreement with Abdul Aziz.
Harb intially launched a much larger claim against the Saudi royal family in 2004. Fahd, however, died the following year aged 82, and the high court ruled that her previous GBP400million maintenance claim died with him.
