LONDON, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- A Saudi prince went on trial in London for allegedly killing his servant by physical abuse, which a prosecutor said Tuesday was captured by security cameras.
Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al-Saud has admitted killing Bandar Abdulaziz, the BBC reported. Jurors must decide whether to convict him of murder or manslaughter. Abdulaziz, 32, was found dead in February in the room he and the prince shared at the Landmark Hotel.
Jonathan Laidlaw, the prosecuting lawyer, told the jury there was a "sexual element" in Saud's mistreatment of Abdulaziz, who had been beaten, bitten and strangled, The Guardian reported. He said an assault in January in a hotel elevator was picked up by a security camera.
"It is clear that his abuse of Bandar was not confined simply to physical beatings," Laidlaw said. "There is clear evidence, over and above the bite marks, that there was also a sexual element to his mistreatment of the victim."
Laidlaw said Saud is a member of the Saudi royal family, whose mother, a daughter of the king, married her cousin, the king's nephew. He said Abdulaziz, an orphan who had grown up as the adopted child of a middle-class Saudi family, had been traveling with the prince as a companion.
