The French should chop off his head just like the Saudis do to Pakistanis when they are tricked into smuggling cocaine into Saudi Arabia by money and job offers by Saudi Princes
BOBIGNY, France (AFP) - A French prosecutor Wednesday demanded a 10-year jail term against a Saudi prince standing trial in absentia on charges of using his diplomatic immunity to smuggle cocaine into France.
Prince Nayef Bin Fawaz Al-Shaalan is one of 10 people facing charges relating to a two-tonne shipment that allegedly arrived on his private Boeing 727 at a Paris airport eight years ago.
Prosecutor Helene Langlois also requested a definitive ban from French territory for the prince and 10 years in jail for his nine co-defendants. The verdict is due at a later date.
None of the accused, who include three Colombian drug-traffickers already convicted in the affair in the United States, were present in the courtroom in the Paris suburb of Bobigny.
Prince Nayef, a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founding monarch Abdulaziz, was represented in court by his twin brother and the lawyer Jacques Verges, who specialises in high-profile briefs.
The prince is alleged to have made contacts with Colombia’s Medellin cartel via a woman whom he met while studying at the University of Miami in the 1980s.
According to the prosecution, he arranged in May 1999 for the cocaine to be packed in briefcases and flown with him to Le Bourget airport outside Paris where it was picked up by aides. As he had diplomatic status, customs officers did not inspect the baggage.
A few days later French police acting on a tip-off found a large quantity of cocaine at a house in the Paris suburb of Noisy-le-Sec and began their investigation.
In 2005, a Miami court handed down several convictions in the affair, using evidence supplied by the three Columbians who had entered a plea-bargain with the prosecution. The same evidence forms the basis of the French case.
French judge Francoise Bouthier-Vergez told the court that the testimony of one of the Colombians, Gustavo Guarin Gonfrier, alleged to have delivered the cocaine to the prince’s aides, had been corroborated by material evidence.
But defence lawyer Verges told reporters that his client was the victim of a conspiracy hatched by the United States, claiming that US authorities had no hard proof that cocaine was transported on board the prince’s plane.
Media reports say the affair is being watched closely by French diplomats, who fear it could have repercussions on relations with Saudi Arabia.
