'Saudi princess' wins $21m UK fraud case

A ‘Saudi princess’ accused of being a prostitute and inventing her royal identity has reportedly won a UK court case to keep six properties worth £14 million pounds ($21.6 million).

Sara Al Amoudi was sued by London property developers Ian Paton and Amanda Clutterbuck, who claim she duped them into handing over six units in London’s West End as part of a wider deal that they believed would later be covered by the billionaire Al Amoudi family.

Funds for the larger deal failed to materialise and Clutterbuck and Paton claimed the now 33-year-old woman refused to return ownership of the six apartments.

Al Amoudi, who in court denied she was a prostitute or fake royal, said Paton, whom she claimed to have been in a secret relationship with, gave her the properties as repayment for millions of dollars she had lent him out of suitcases full of cash that she had been sent from Saudi Arabia, according to a report by the Daily Mail.

Al Amoudi won the London High Court case last year and on Friday the Court of Appeal also rejected the couple’s plea, the report added.

The Court of Appeal said claims over her identity, including that she is an illegal Ethiopian immigrant, were irrelevant and there was no evidence that she used her ‘royal’ identity to fraudulently claim the units, the website said.

Dubbed ‘The Vamp in the Veil’ by the British media, Al Amoudi claims to have dated footballer Freddie Ljungberg and actors Colin Farrell and Joaquin Phoenix and previously appeared in court in 2010 when her ex-boyfriend, Swedish model Patrick Ribbsaeter, was cleared of assaulting her chauffeur.

She also has claimed she was once a child-bride of a former Saudi king

Source: KUNA