Saudi prince faces UK jail sentence amid loan fight

LONDON: A Saudi prince faces jail in the UK for flouting English contempt laws in the latest stage of a long-running dispute over a loan agreement with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

Prince Hussam Bin Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a former chairman of Zain Saudi Arabia, should be imprisoned for a year, a London judge said on Friday.

The prince, who didn’t attend the court hearing in the UK, said the loan case should only be heard in Saudi Arabia.


The sentence for contempt of cour t in England stems from a dispute between the prince and the Kuwaiti-listed mobile operator Zain over a 2010 loan.

After losing a private arbitration hearing in London where he was ordered to pay more than $500 million, the prince pursued separate legal proceedings in Riyadh, effectively ignoring British court orders to halt the Saudi case.