New Statesman
"The news that a Saudi prince is on trial in London for killing an aide who was reputedly also his gay lover will be enormously embarrassing to the government back in Riyadh. Saudis dislike bad publicity intensely, and especially when it involves a case as horrific as an alleged princely murder — as we in Britain should know well. In 1980, the Saudi government expelled our ambassador and banned Concorde from its airspace after ITV screened Death of a Princess, about a young member of the royal family who was executed for the "crime" of conducting a secret relationship.
"The news that a Saudi prince is on trial in London for killing an aide who was reputedly also his gay lover will be enormously embarrassing to the government back in Riyadh. Saudis dislike bad publicity intensely, and especially when it involves a case as horrific as an alleged princely murder — as we in Britain should know well. In 1980, the Saudi government expelled our ambassador and banned Concorde from its airspace after ITV screened Death of a Princess, about a young member of the royal family who was executed for the "crime" of conducting a secret relationship.
In the opinion of David Gardner, author of Last Chance: the Middle East in the Balance (and who wrote a fascinating essay on Saudi Arabia for the NS last year): "This prince has become a very hot potato for the Saudi ruling family. Though a minor princeling, he is the grandson of a king who has tried to project an image of austere probity, to limit the power of the clerical establishment and curb the excesses of the more wayward and corrupt royals.
"Then along comes this . . . which presses just about every Wahhabi button in its transgression: murder and homosexuality against a backdrop of phenomenal quantities of alcohol and drugs.".....
Prince Saud's story will soon be known. Perhaps some of those reading it will shudder, and give thanks that nothing similar happened to them — after all, they may have met him online already . . ."
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