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» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Geneva: member of UAE ruling family charged in beating of US businessman

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Author Topic: Geneva: member of UAE ruling family charged in beating of US businessman
Hephaestion
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Babbler # 4795

posted 09 April 2006 05:51 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sheik says victim called him "gay", denies he whipped victim with his belt

quote:
Orsi said he had no idea who Sheik Fallah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was before they met on the evening of Aug. 19, 2003. In fact, he didn't learn his identity, he said, until he stumbled bloodied and bruised to the hotel reception desk and pleaded with staff to call the police. At a closed-door hearing in March, the sheik acknowledged they got into a heated scuffle when he overheard someone remark that "this sheik is gay." But he insisted he never struck Orsi, either with his fists or his belt, nor arranged to pay him 10,000 euros ($13,000) in hush money.

[...]

A quarter-hour later, Orsi alleged, the man suddenly came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, he maintained the man became violently angry, threw him to the floor, punched and stomped him, smashed his glasses underfoot, then removed his belt and whipped him with the metal buckle. All the time, Orsi said his attacker was yelling abuse, saying at one point that "no stupid American or Italian is going to tell me what to do!"

After hotel staff and others intervened, taking him into a side room, Orsi said he was getting first aid for a deep cut over his left eye and welts on his arms and back when the man appeared again and flailed at him with his belt, then did the same a third time after Orsi retreated to the reception desk.

By this time, with private bodyguards appearing, Orsi suspected he had run into "maybe some personality." He was told the man was a son of Emirates ruler Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Sheik Fallah's elder brother, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was appointed president when their father died in November 2004.

Sheik Fallah, 35, was charged in November with suspicion of assault with a dangerous instrument, which carries a maximum three-year prison sentence.

According to a transcript obtained by The Associated Press, the sheik said at a March 13 hearing in Geneva magistrate Yves Aeschlimann's office that he was annoyed when Orsi refused the champagne but confronted him "after I was called gay."


Gee, I just *wonder* if this "suspicion of assault" charge will ever progress to a charge that means something. Lessee.... son of wealthy autocrat of wildly homophobic nation..... uhhhhh... I'm gonna guess not.

Not even in Geneva.

From: goodbye... :-( | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged

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