Hassa bint Salman

The sister of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is going on trial in absentia in Paris accused of conspiring to kidnap and beat an Egyptian worker who was refurbishing her luxury apartment in Paris.

Iran Press/Europe: Hassa bint Salman’s French lawyer said she denied the charges of complicity in armed violence, complicity in holding someone against their will and theft against an Egyptian-born man who was carrying out repairs at her family’s Paris residence on the exclusive Avenue Foch in September 2016.

France issued an international arrest warrant for princess Hassa bint Salman in November 2017, and the hearing was expected to go ahead in her absence, The Guardian reported.

Hassa is the sister of Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the Saudi throne. 

Mohammad Bin Salman heir to the Saudi throne

The 43-year-old is accused of conspiring to get her bodyguard to beat the Egyptian worker, Ashraf Eid, whom she allegedly suspected of taking a photograph of the room he was decorating. She allegedly accused him of planning to sell the photo.

According to the indictment, Eid told police Hassa’s bodyguard bound his hands and punched and kicked him after she accused him of filming her on his phone.

Eid told French police that as he was being beaten, the princess said to him: “You’ll see how you speak to a princess, how you speak to the royal family.”

In an account given to Le Point news magazine in France, the worker claimed that the princess shouted: “Kill him, the dog, he doesn’t deserve to live.”

The princess’s lawyer, Emmanuel Moyne, said the existence of the international arrest warrant against her ruled out her attendance of Tuesday’s hearing in Paris, and an offer to enable investigators to question her by video conference had been refused by Saudi authorities.

The Saudi government communications office has not commented on the case. 101/211

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Hassa bint Salman
Mohammad Bin Salman heir to the Saudi throne