Despite her royal heritage, the Saudi princess has long been a moderate and a
human rights campaigner in a kingdom not known for its liberal outlook.
Now, Her Royal Highness Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al Saud – to
give her her full title – faces her most arduous battle.
The princess, who lives in west London, has been blackmailed over a revealing
video which she insists was stolen from her laptop by computer hackers.
The video appears to Western eyes innocuous enough, but to the Saudi
establishment, which prefers neither to hear nor to see its women, it is deeply
embarrassing.
The images of her smoking and with her hair
uncovered
Her blackmailer has demanded more than £300,000 not to publish the contents
of conversations the princess was tricked into having, as well as videos and
photographs allegedly stolen from her computer.
But rather than pay up, Princess Basmah, 48, a mother of five children, has
decided to go public to pre-empt the blackmailer.
“In Saudi Arabia it is a scandal for a woman to smoke and not have anything
on her head,” Princess Basmah told The Sunday Telegraph.
“It is like seeing Princess Kate [the Duchess of Cambridge] with no bra. It
has the same effect. And since I am a symbol – fighting for humanitarian causes
and fighting corruption, and somebody with a moderate Islamic message, that
would ruin everything for me with my public in Saudi Arabia.”
Princess Basmah is in some ways an unlikely member of the Saudi royal family.
She was the youngest daughter of King Saud, who ruled the kingdom from 1953 to
1964 until he was forced into exile in Europe after being accused of corruption.
Princess Basmah was the youngest of his 115 children and saw her father only
twice before he died when she was only five.
The princess established herself in Saudi Arabia as a writer, businesswoman
and charity worker, but moved to London two years ago.
She insists she has not fallen out with Saudi’s ruling elite – and now lives
in the west London suburb of Acton in a £1.5 million house.
The plot began while Princess Basmah was on holiday at Christmas at The
Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. Logging on to her Facebook account, she was
contacted by a friend, whom she refuses to name, but describes as a 30-something
sheikh from the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the sheikh’s account had been
hacked by the blackmailer. The plot to undermine her had begun.
“I won’t say the name [of the sheikh]; I don’t want to hurt him,” said
Princess Basmah, “But it was through his Facebook account that I was hacked. It
was one of the prominent sheikhs.
“He sent me a message saying how fascinated he is by my work, how he admired
my writings and how I was a hero of the Arab world.”
Flattered by the praise, the princess and the man she mistook for a sheikh
continued their dialogue for a further three days before having a long video
conversation via the internet, using Skype.
“We talked around December 27th,” said Princess Basmah, “He was a young man.
He started getting emotional, saying he would be coming to see me and that I had
to see him. He said he was very attracted to me and I started to become
suspicious.”
The princess believes the man, who resembled the sheikh, was trying to entrap
her into making injudicious and overtly sexual comments.
She confronted the man whom she now suspected of fraud and he revealed his
true motives.
“He told me: 'I am not so-and-so [the sheikh], I am a blackmailer’,” recalled
the princess. “I was speechless. I thought, why would somebody blackmail me?
"There are lots of people who want to get me in trouble but why blackmail me?
There is nothing they can expose me on. I am a very public person. I have
nothing to hide.
“I felt like I was physically beaten up. I felt bruised psychologically and
mentally.”
The blackmailer demanded $500,000 (£320,000), asking money to be transferred
to accounts in Egypt but the princess went public first.
On her website, she posted: “I have been threatened and blackmailed by a
large organisation which has wielded its power to try and destroy my reputation.
"I have recorded these attempts and have evidence which I will publish via
social media exposing the attempts to quiet my voice.”
The blackmailer then published a 40-second video of the princess on the
internet site YouTube, showing her smoking a cigarette and blowing a kiss. Her
head is uncovered.
The princess insists this is not footage taken from their Skype conversation.
She says the video was stolen from her laptop and has no sound but shows her
talking to her son by Skype.
To add to the intrigue, a few days after the blackmail plot the princess’s
Range Rover was stolen from outside her house.
She is now convinced she is being watched and has brought in a computer
expert to check for bugging devices on her computer and in her home and other
cars.
Princess Basmah is certain the blackmailer is part of a network of activists
and dissidents trying to undermine the royal family and her relationship with
the kingdom’s rulers.
She is convinced the blackmailer has connections to an anonymous Twitter user
called Mujtahidd, who has almost one million followers and has published
intimate details of other members of the Saudi ruling family.
“The Twitter site is very well known in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East.
Everybody gets information from it. Mujtahidd really tells you what is happening
inside the country. The blackmailer told me he was one of them [in Mujtahidd’s
network] and he told me information to make me believe him. His is a big, huge
network.”
All the accused – including Pawan, Bhil, Praveen and an unidentified person – were arrested from Haryana’s Sonepat as they had left the city after sexually attacking the woman.
19 Comments 
