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Gay prince found guilty of murder



CCTV images of the prince assaulting his aide - Reuters photo
A gay Saudi prince is facing a life sentence for beating and strangling his servant to death in a London hotel.



The prince and his aide partying before the assault
Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud, 34, was found guilty Tuesday at London's Old Bailey of murdering Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, in a "brutal" assault at their five-star hotel suite.

The prince was fuelled by champagne and "sex on the beach" cocktails when he bit the 32-year-old hard on both cheeks during the attack in February.

They had just returned from a Valentine's Day night out when Saud launched the ferocious assault.

The prince from one of the world's richest and most powerful dynasties, was found guilty of murder Tuesday by the jury after just one hour and 35 minutes of deliberation.

If he ever returns to his home country he faces the possibility of execution - not because of the killing but because being gay is a capital offence there.

In court, he showed no reaction as the decision was announced.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said they had been drinking heavily before going to the room at the Landmark Hotel in Knightsbridge, West London.

Police found Bandar's face bruised, lips split and teeth broken on February 15. Bandar, described as a "slave" in court had been beaten in a lift just weeks before, caught on CCTV.

Laidlaw said: "Saud's concealing of the sexual aspect to his abuse tends to suggest there was a sexual element to the circumstances of the killing."

The court had earlier heard that the murder was the final act in a "deeply abusive" master-servant relationship in which the prince carried out frequent attacks on his aide "for his own personal gratification".

Before the trial, the prince's lawyer John Kelsey-Fry argued that evidence of the gay relationship should not be put before the jury, claiming it was not "probative" of the murder allegations.

Jurors heard that by the early hours of February 15, Bandar Abdulaziz was left so worn down after having suffered injuries on his ear and swollen eye from previous assaults that he simply let the prince kill him without a fight.

The prince then spent hours trying to cover up what he had done before the body was discovered.

He claimed he had woken in the afternoon to find he could not revive his friend and explained his injuries by saying he had been attacked and robbed in London's Edgware Road weeks earlier.

CCTV footage at the hotel however, showed Saud visciously attacking his aide in a lift on January 22.

The verdict will mean a lengthy jail term for the prince and an end to his lifestyle of dining in fine restaurants and secretly entertaining gay escorts in his plush hotel room.