Late Saudi King Fahd’s secret wife awarded millions of pounds in court

The ‘secret wife’ (Palestinian-born Janan Harb) of late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has been awarded millions of pounds by the High Court judge who believed her claim that she had been told she would be looked after for the rest of her life.

According to her, at the age of 19, she secretly married the king who ruled from 1982 to 2005 in 1968 when he was still a prince and the country’s interior minister.

The royal family discovered & opposed the marriage because she was from a Christian family. In a bid to discredit her, was sent away from Saudi Arabia in 1970 when the family “wrongly” blamed her for Fahd’s methadone addiction.

In June 2003, she was approached by Prince Abdul Aziz, the son of another of the king’s wives, who promised her financial security. At the time of the meeting, the then king was seriously ill. He agreed to pay her £12m and transfer two flats in the prestigious Cheyne Walk part of Chelsea to her ownership, thereby fulfilling his father’s wishes.

However, the prince subsequently failed to honour the agreement and wrote to the court denying the claim. Chancery Division judge Mr Justice Peter Smith positively sided with Ms Harb after the prince failed to attend court to give his side of the story, arguing that current monarch King Salman and his family thought attendance would create “a media circus”.