Secret wife of Saudi king may be stripped of her £25m payout
A £ 25MILLION payout awarded to the secret wife of a Saudi king was quashed yesterday amid claims a judge had shown ‘bias’.
Janan Harb, 68, won the sum after claiming she was promised financial support for life by members of the Arab royal family to ‘buy her silence’ over her relationship with King Fahd.
She said Prince Aziz – son of the late king by another wife – agreed to the deal at London’s Dorchester Hotel in June 2003, while the ruler was seriously ill.
But the prince appealed against the ruling, and yesterday three appeal court judges quashed the huge award.
Making their decision, the judges were critical of the way the original payout case was handled by Mr Justice Peter Smith. He wrote a ‘shocking letter revealing possible bias’ against the legal chambers that provided the barristers who represented Prince Aziz.
The letter was prompted by a newspaper article by Lord Pannick QC, a member of the chambers, which criticised Mr Justice Peter Smith’s handling of an unrelated case involving British Airways. The judge wrote that he no longer supported the chambers ‘that have people like Pannick in it’.
In yesterday’s appeal ruling, Lord Dyson hit out at the ‘shocking and ... disgraceful’ letter.
He concluded that ‘the shortcomings’ in the way the judge dealt with the evidence were ‘so serious that the appeal must be allowed for that reason’.
However, they rejected an allegation of ‘apparent bias’ against the judge. Miss Harb’s claim against the prince will now be heard again before a different High Court judge. Her marriage to King Fahd was apparently kept secret because her Christian background was an issue for the rulers of the strict Muslim country.
She told the court last year that she was 19 when she and the king had secretly married under Sharia law in March 1968.
Palestinian-born Miss Harb said she converted to Islam before they wed and became pregnant three times in three years. But she had three abortions as the king was concerned there would be public outcry because of her Christian background.
Two years after they wed, Miss Harb fell out with the family and was banished before she could get a divorce. The prince denied her claim she was offered financial support for life to buy her silence. But Mr Justice Peter Smith ruled that, although her behaviour was ‘unattractive’, Miss Harb was ‘telling the truth’ about the agreement.
Both Miss Harb and King Fahd later remarried. The king died in 2005. A spokesman for the judiciary said: ‘Mr Justice Peter Smith has agreed to continue to refrain from sitting at the present time.’