Gay Saudi prince convicted of murdering servant

A GAY Saudi prince was facing a life sentence last night for beating and strangling his servant to death in the culmination of a campaign of “sadistic” abuse.

Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering Bandar Abdulaziz in a “brutal” assault at their five-star hotel suite.

The prince bit the 32-year-old hard on both cheeks during the attack in February which was said to have had a “sexual element”.

He was fuelled by champagne and ‘Sex on the Beach’ cocktails when he began the ferocious beating after a Valentine’s Day night out.

When he was arrested he at first wrongly believed he had diplomatic immunity but his special status as a Saudi royal could not save him from British justice.

The 34-year-old, a member of one of the world’s richest and most powerful dynasties, was found guilty of murder by an Old Bailey jury after just one hour and 35 minutes of deliberation.

Saud, shaven-headed and wearing a black top, showed no reaction to the verdict. He will be sentenced today.

His father, Prince Abdulaziz, who watched from the public gallery, later appeared visibly shaken and was attended to by the court matron before being driven away.

Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane said after the hearing: “He made every effort to evade justice. This verdict clearly shows no one, regardless of their position, is above the law.”

The decision means a lengthy jail term for the prince and the end to his luxury playboy lifestyle in which he dined in fine restaurants and secretly entertained male escorts in his plush hotel room.

A gay masseur who visited him there described the “dashing” Saud as a cross between Omar Sharif and Nigel Havers.

In court his lawyers made a failed bid before the trial started to cover up evidence of his homosexuality.

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.

The murder of 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”.

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 in London’s Edgware Road weeks before.

Detectives 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.