Spanish court drops Saudi prince rape case
Prince Alaweed, 57, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and one of the world’s richest men, was accused of raping a 20-year-old Spanish model onboard a yacht off the Balearic island of Ibiza in August 2008.
LONDON, UK – A Spanish court has dropped a rape case against Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal over “contradictions and vagueness” in evidence from the alleged victim.
Prince Alaweed, 57, a nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and one of the world’s richest men, was accused of raping a 20-year-old Spanish model onboard a yacht off the Balearic island of Ibiza in August 2008.
His lawyers denied the charge and said he was not even in Ibiza at the time of the alleged crime, according to The New York Times. A judge order the case to be closed in 2010 over lack of evidence but it was reopened on appeal from the woman.
In its ruling released Thursday, the provincial court on Palma de Majorca, the capital of the Balearic Islands, ordered a stay of proceedings, saying there was insufficient evidence to either establish what had happened or conclude that Prince Alwaleed had been involved.
In a statement, the prince’s legal team said the ruling vindicated their client, but that the case had resulted in “a grave injustice” being done to him:
“These reports confirm what we have said all along, which is that the allegations against HRH Prince Alwaleed were not only false and outrageous but also impossible as His Royal Highness was not in Spain at the time but was in France with his wife, children, grandchildren and in the presence of dozens of witnesses, as the documentation shows,” they said, according to CNN.
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Prince Alwaleed is now pursuing criminal actions against the woman, her mother and their lawyer, as well as professional sanctions against the lawyer for unethical behaviour, the BBC reports.
The woman believes her drink was spiked after she met the prince in an Ibiza nightclub and woke up to find herself being raped in a bedroom on a luxury yacht owned by the Saudi royal family.
Traces of semen and a tranquillizer, nordazepam, were found in her urine following forensic tests.
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