They do say that if you are a diplomat you can often get away with things - you know, when done for shoplifting, or when faced with the inconvenience of London congestion charges, you can plead immunity and walk away. They also say that if you are rich, you can often bend things your way. People can be bought sometimes, especially if they are poor or ‘little’. Sometimes your wealth will just exude an aura of power that intoxicates and blinds, or causes deference and defeat. Similarly, if you are a member of a royal family from a country not known for its adherence to a code of human rights, you may literally be able to get away with - well, murder, I suppose. Your power and reputation would precede you and open doors closed to many others.
Just imagine … just imagine if you were all three of the above. A rich diplomat who was also a member of the Saudi Royal Family. You might be tempted to think that you could get away with a £3 million theft.
The Saudi Ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed bin Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz, a nephew of King Abdullah, has been ordered by the court to pay more than £3 million to his family’s former private secretary, Walid El Hage, a Briton of Lebanese extraction, who spent the money on the prince’s behalf.
Of course, the 54-year-old ambassador ignored the court proceedings, and had judgment awarded against him by default. But he now says he is hoping for an “amicable settlement”. A meeting with the El Hage camp has been arranged for next week and the prince says he is seeking to have the court judgment set aside. Lawyers in Saudi Arabia are handling the claim, and have asked for receipts “in order to consider the expenses claimed and as appropriate to seek to reach an amicable settlement”.
In a normal case, a debtor’s property could be seized. But under the Vienna convention, other diplomats and their London families currently get away with a variety of illegal activities. However, El Hage believes the ambassador’s diplomatic immunity is uncertain, because the alleged debts were incurred before he took up his present diplomatic post.
The spending habits of the Saudi royals are legendary, but rarely have they been laid bare in so much details. I really would encourage you to pass a moment or two just looking at the details of the spending. It is staggering.
Court documents: the alleged debts in full (pdf)
Bills he is claimed to have run up on an array of luxury amusements include two top-of-the-range Chevrolet 4×4s, a thermal night vision kit for his Hummer H2, dozens of designer watches and jewels, a selection of handguns and two Arab karaoke machines. One takeaway meal came to almost $800 (£391). And then there is the $2,500 item on a trip to a hotel in Casablanca that reads: “Girls: party night 5″.
Then there is a list of 43 luxury watches allegedly bought in just 18 months at a total cost of at least £350,000. They included a Patek Philippe for £23,000 and two Jaeger Le Coultres for £17,500 and £16,700. In January 2004, it is alleged, the prince left Riyadh for a European trip. He bought cutlery from specialist Paris shops Curty & Fils and Laguiole for €22, 990 (£16,439). His family also allegedly invested in the must-have female fashion item - a crocodile Birkin bag listed at €18,770. Outfits from the couturiers Lanvin allegedly cost a further €150,000. A Beretta pistol (€6,761) also figures on the list, along with a Cartier watch (€27,000) and antique guns, shotgun, and swords (€66,000). Back in Saudi, it is claimed the prince spent £1,200 on three ivory tusks with amber and turquoise, and a red and gold crystal set for £9,000. A fleet of Yamaha Grizzly, and Big Bear quad bikes set him back £13,000.
But all this was a small sum compared with the $183,000 which went on purchase and freight charges from the US for five highly sophisticated Raytheon thermal night vision cameras, to be fitted on his H2 Humvee US-army derivative vehicle. A large US pick-up, a Chevrolet Avalanche, is listed as “full options $39,250″. A specialist off-road rally car, the Wildcat African Raid, built by a UK firm in Derbyshire, on a Land-Rover chassis is listed as £94,000.
A large selection of guns also figure on the alleged invoices These include two Czech CZ75D and CZ97B pistols, a French Famas assault rifle and a Micro-Uzi machine gun of Israeli origin. The Austrian Glock 18C “special tactical weapon” is described in one advertisement as “particularly popular with VIP security personnel. Nothing stops an assassination attempt faster than a hail of 9mm bullets”.
In March, the prince went on a further trip to Austria and on to Casablanca. There was an alleged visit to the famous Swarovski shop on Vienna’s Kartnerstrasse of which it is said “almost any self-respecting Viennese lady has a Swarovski necklace, bracelet, or pair of earrings”. The total bill was said to be $25,000. In Morocco, items read: “hotel extra suite expenses, rooms for girls etc $1,465 … girls party night 5 $2,500… Moroccan sweets arrangement to take away $250 … HRH cash in hand $20,000″. One striking purchase listed is an “ST Dupont lighter limited edition” for $1,769, which carries a mother-of-pearl and platinum rendering of the design of the Taj Mahal.
Back in Jeddah, the prince is said to have bought many Persian rugs, more vehicles and watches and gifts of amber. As well as some low-calorie sweets, he also allegedly splashed out on the import of a suite of exotic pets, (with cages) including parrots, mynah birds and a Dr No-style white Persian chinchilla cat.
According to the court claims, the ambassador’s luggage of choice is Delsey and Zero Halliburton aluminium suitcases, whilst in cigars, his preferences run to the latest offering from Cuba - the Cohiba Siglo VI “Canonazo” brand. His alternative choice is alleged to be the Lusitanias Double Corona, described as “a truly great cigar” with “cedar wood, leather and cinnamon”.
I suppose part of my interest in all this is just idle curiosity to see how the other very few live. However, in the light of the recent ruling by the government to halt an investigation into BAE Systems allegedly bribing the Saudis, it isn’t too big a jump to possibly conclude that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
_____________
Click HERE for a witty script based on the above spending.
I am staggered and sickened by such gross indulgence, excess and wealth to squander.
I also think the last statement is particulary relevant.
It makes me angry when I read about poverty in the world and the effects of poverty on people’s lives.
I hope he has to pay every last penny but I don’t think that will make him reflect on his spending.
Financial inequality and the choices one can make depending on your financial status has always been here but this is dreadful. I feel sick to read it and what good that money could have done to so many causes.
Such people have no souls and what is worse they don’t care either.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be as rich as this man but I am sure of one thing, namely that to be so wealthy takes you out of the realm of the ordinary into a completely different one. His view of the world and of himself must be completely different from my view of the world and myself. Even if I were to become fabulously wealthy, I would not become like him though I might acquire a few of his habits and outlooks. He would no doubt scoff at our objections to his behaviour and regard us as ignorant and mean little spirits of no account. No logic, no arguments, would change his mind.
Having said that, however, I would question whether we are right to see this man as some paragon of corruption and selfishness, qualitatively different from the rest of us. Are we not all corrupt and selfish to some degree? I consider myself modestly off, yet, compared with people in some parts of the world, I am rich beyond imagination. They would say I could well reduce my expenditure and devote the saving to helping those worse off than myself whereas I would be hard pressed to see where I could economize.
But it is not just this Prince, is it? We can look nearer home and see individuals and organizations basking in wealth. Consider the Royal Family or the Catholic Church, for example. They may not be as rich but it hardly matters: how much money can one individual spend before spending ceases to have any meaning?
Should we agree to cap people’s wealth? Perhaps we should have a worldwide rule that no one should enjoy an income exceeding X thousands of pounds per annum. But where do you draw the line? Wherever you draw it, those affected will claim they have been unjustly impoverished, that they cannot live on the measly income they are allowed. What size of cut would you take in your income - 10% 25%? 30%? 75%?
The world’s problems could be solved - hunger, disease, poverty, war - if we really wanted this. It only needs governments to get together and work together with one humane accord. The prince is irrelevant to this. Nor is he to blame for the fact that world governments remain at odds with one another and fail to solve the problems, even using the problems for their own political ends.
It is easy to blame people like the prince but the real blame lies elsewhere. I think he is a symptom, not a cause.
As usual ST, you make some very interesting points. I think my main interests were: 1) lurid fascination with the staggering total and seemingly bizarre detail, and 2) slight outrage with against a sense that you might be able to get away with it. Presumably most of us would have realized that there were bills to be paid and it wouldn’t have required a court judgement to get us to coff up.
I agree that there are problems closer to home too - though the scale of this seemed to make it a bit different.
I think I can partly agree with you that he is a symptom of something - like all royals, brought up in wealth and taught that he has no equals - but I’m not sure you mean that. If he is not to blame, who or what is?
My experience of rich people is that they are often stingier than poor people and that getting them to pay bills is harder than getting poor people to pay bills. Why? Maybe because they love money so much that they find it hard to let it go.
Blame is a funny thing. I have done things in my life that I have regretted and then blamed myself for or I have blamed others for hurting me unjustly (as I saw it). But can you blame someone for what he is? I think that is a tricky question.
Take “Mad” Frankie Fraser, for example. Do we consider him blameworthy for all the harm he has done to people? On one level, yes, definitely. On another, his actions were all of a piece with the life that he led and, despite going to prison, it was by some measures a very successful one. But if we blame him, then at what point do we start to blame and what do we blame him for, exactly? In many ways, what he did was what he was. Maybe what we should blame is that he was allowed to be and no one stopped him.
I think in the same way, the behaviour of super-rich princes is all of a piece with what they are. A shark is how it lives, a statement which is trivially true of rabbits and ladybirds as well. Maybe the blame lies with those who allowed there to be people like the prince and in particular allowed there to be this specific prince. Given the world as it is you might almost say of him “Rotten job but someone had to do it.”
I have to admit that he doesn’t bother me that much. I walk in town and see rich people arriving at Harrod’s in their limousines looking and talking as though they own London and everything in it. So what? They’re where they are and I’m where I am and I know where I prefer to be. Right here, thanks. Maybe that’s blinkered of me but I am unlikely ever to know that.
If we took all the prince’s wealth and did good works with it, we could do a lot of good. Yep, but we will never get that money, will we? If the prince suddenly popped out of existence his wealth would be redistributed somewhere else. It wouldn’t fall into our pockets.
It’s fun to look at what he does with his money and his life but I am not going to get indignant, let alone outraged. The only person that hurts is me.
I think I will maintain my ’slight outrage’, not at his wealth per se, but at the assumption that he might be able to get away with it.
As for the argument, “That’s how he is …”, I agree that context and genetics obviously influence outcome. If you were saying, sharks are sharks and do sharky things and human beings are human beings and do human things, I would agree with you. If you are saying he is a particular type of human being and we shouldn’t get upset about it, I think I want to reserve the right to maintain an important part of my humanity and pass judgement about the particular type of human being he is. And my judgement, in my book, is normal and healthy - not indifference (level 0), not extreme outrage and pain (level 10), but a slight feeling of annoyance based on a cognitive evaluation, accepting that I can do nothing about it and that he is as he is (level 5).
You are entitled to the degree of outrage you are comfortable with. I sympathize with it.
What is annoying (to me) is not so much that people like the Prince exist and behave as they do but that organizations that should be above reproach, such as HM Government, give in to them and play their game, giving them the kickbacks they demand in order to do business with them.
Having said that, I think we can blame only where there is responsibility. For example, though I am a vegetarian, I do not blame my cat for hunting birds as that is her nature and she is not able to change it. I think our liberty to act (or to refrain from acting) as free agents is very much less than we usually think it is. We gloss over this because of the problems that recognizing it would raise (many prison sentences would be revealed as unjust, for example).
While I do not blame all crime and immorality on the environment, I do blame those who collectively form the environment for making much crime and immorality, not merely possible but inevitable. Our blame of the Prince should be tempered by the fact that collectively we make it possible for him to behave as he does. In a certain sense he is you and me writ large.