Saudi Princess Orders Death of Decorator for Taking Photo of Flat: ‘You Must Kill Him’

A Saudi Arabian princess spending time in France flipped out on her hired apartment decorator and ordered her guards to kill him after he took a photograph of her flat – as he normally does with all clients, to help with his decorating decisions.

“You must kill him, this dog,” the princess said, according to one media account of the matter. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”

The guards didn’t kill him – but they did bind his hands, hold a gun to his head, beat him and threaten him with death for about four hours, before letting him go free.

As for the princess: she skipped town, singing a song of diplomatic immunity.

Jihad Watch, citing the magazine Le Point, has the details:

“The decorator said his terrifying ordeal started after he had taken a snap of the interior of the flat in a chic apartment block on Avenue Foch, in the affluent 16ème arrondissement, when the princess flew into a rage.

“‘You must kill him, this dog. He doesn’t deserve to live,’ he told police she had screamed at her armed bodyguard because she thought that he had taken the picture to sell it to the press.

“Guards of Saudi royals are authorised by the French interior ministry to bear arms, which is not the case for private security guards of French nationality, bar rare exceptions.

“The decorator said he desperately tried to explain that he always took pictures of buildings where he conducted works to be sure to put back objects and furniture in the same place afterwards.

“But the princess remained unconvinced and the decorator said her guard then punched him on the side of the head before binding his hands together.

“In a fit of zeal, the guard then ordered his prisoner to ‘kiss the feet’ of the princess. He said when he refused, the guard pointed a gun at him.”

The decorator, post-ordeal, filed a complaint with the police against the princess claiming she never paid her bill, she kept all his trade equipment and – oh yeah, there’s this – she beat him and held him hostage for hours.

But the princess is likely to avoid accountability.

Some perspective, from Jihad Watch:

“[T]he Saudi princess skipped town, claiming “diplomatic immunity,” as so many well-off Saudi princes and princesses have done, since they are, after all, part of the vast ruling family, though their connection to actual diplomacy is non-existent.

“What did this incident, that attracted a good deal of Parisian commentary, tell us? For it was not an isolated incident. There have been many cases reported in Europe (and some even in the U.S.) of royal Saudis misbehaving in extraordinary ways. Several of them have decamped from their hotels without paying their bills, though none of them lacks for money.

“One did so in the dead of night in Paris, along with the 60 members of her retinue, in order to avoid paying a $7 million dollar hotel bill for 41 rooms that she had rented for six months, and to avoid paying, as well, a $20 million dollar debt owed to a dozen luxury stores. Other Saudi princesses and princes have left without settling similar bills running into many millions, not only from hotels, but from interior decorators, limousine services, jewelry and furniture stores. And then there are more serious crimes, involving the physical abuse of their servants and employees.
“One Saudi prince, Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud, was sentenced to jail in the U.K. in 2010 for the “sexually motivated killing of his Sudanese manservant,” whom he beat to death after a “prolonged campaign of violence and sexual abuse” in a suite in London’s Landmark Hotel.

“But though given a life sentence, after just three years he was released, to serve the rest of his sentence in Saudi Arabia. Just how long do you think it will be before this prince of the Al-Saud family is set free from his Saudi prison? One year? One month? And do you think he’s being made to endure real prison conditions, or something more like a hotel? And when he’s freed, what can the British government do about it? Nothing.

“In the U.S., another Saudi prince faced allegations of having a sexual relationship with a male aide, taking cocaine and threatening to kill women who refused his advances – as well as sexually assaulting a maid at his Beverly Hills mansion. He managed to have felony charges against him dropped, and appears to have fled the country rather than face misdemeanor charges. Another example of a Saudi getting away with, if not murder, than at least serious charges, of forced sex, with several different people.”

In other words: It’s common for Saudi princes and princesses to treat the rest of the world’s residents like slaves. And it’s common for the prima donna Saudi royals to skip out on any accountability for their mistreatment of fellow humans.

Again, from Jihad Watch:

“While travelling in Europe with their Saudi employers, domestic servants have from time to time managed to escape from them and to tell stories of barbarous mistreatment and overwork and often a failure to be paid even the pitiful sums they were promised. One can only imagine how many servants of the Saudis endure their lives as semi-slaves in Saudi Arabia – with little payment, having their passports held so that they cannot escape, subject to 18-hour work days, beaten or sexually molested or even tortured – and who, unless they travel with their Saudi masters to Europe, and manage to escape — remain largely unable to report their intolerable conditions.

“But even when the reports reach the West, nothing effective is done, either by the countries whose nationals are most affected (Sri Lanka, India, the Philippines, Thailand) or by Western powers, to change Saudi behavior.”