Sara Al-Amoudi, the allegedly estranged daughter of Ethiopian billionaire businessman Mohammed Al Amoudi, is back in the news on British media after her 30-year-old boyfriend, Patrick Ribbsaeter, tried to attack her and stabbed her driver with a broken wine glass. Ribbsaeter appeared in court yesterday where the prosecutor called him a “gold-digger.”
UK’s Daily Mail:
A ‘gold-digging’ male model dumped by a Saudi Arabian princess after she caught him with two other women attacked her chauffeur in a rage, a court heard yesterday.
The fracas unfolded at the princess’s London flat after a night of drink and drugs, jurors were told.
Swedish model Patrick Ribbsaeter had met Sara Al-Amoudi on holiday in Thailand and the pair became lovers.
The relationship offered the promise of unimaginable wealth to Ribbsaeter, 30, who has modelled for a host of household names, including Calvin Klein, Armani, Gucci and Christian Dior.
But his hopes of a gilded future promptly disappeared when she caught him with the other women in her flat in Victoria, Central London, the court heard.
And after she dumped him, Ribbsaeter, 30, is alleged to have lunged at Miss Al-Amoudi as she slept. At this point her driver Sarkis Tokatlian stepped in to stop him, giving him a bloody nose, but Ribbsaeter smashed a wine glass and stabbed the driver six times in his face before beginning to strangle him, a jury was told.
Prosecutor Martin Whitehouse said the trial showed a world that was a far cry from the ‘idyllic, perhaps artificial’ image painted of the rich by Hello! magazine.
It was a life of ‘drinks, drugs and clubs’, he said, that was ‘in some respects, rather seedy and, of course, there’s violence’.
Pony-tailed Ribbsaeter sat in the dock at Southwark Crown Court wearing an open white shirt exposing his chest as the case against him was outlined.
Mr Whitehouse called him a ‘gold-digger’ and said that while he may appear charming and good-looking, there was another side to him.
‘He’s violent, he’s vain, he’s egocentric,’ the prosecutor said. ‘He’s also, I suggest, a liar and prone to exaggeration.’
The alleged assaults happened after Miss Al-Amoudi and Ribbsaeter went to dinner on a Saturday in September last year following her discovery of the two women.
Mr Tokatlian then drove Miss Al-Amoudi and Ribbsaeter in a Rolls-Royce to dinner, then on to a series of nightclubs, including the Ministry of Sound, before the couple returned to her flat in the early hours of Sunday. It was then that she talked about her future with Ribbsaeter and ‘realised that Patrick was, after all, not the man for her’, the prosecutor said.
Mr Tokatlian returned to the flat after dropping off the car and it became apparent that Ribbsaeter and Miss Al-Amoudi had split up.
The trio talked until Miss Al-Amoudi fell asleep. But Ribbsaeter is then said to have lunged at her, prompting the chauffeur to respond.
After the alleged glass attack, the pair struggled on the floor by the dining table until Ribbsaeter climbed on top of the victim. He grabbed his throat with both hands, and began to strangle him, stopping only when Mr Tokatlian pushed his thumbs into his attacker’s eyes, the court heard.
Mr Whitehouse said: ‘Ribbsaeter intended to cause him really serious harm and he was not acting in self-defence.
‘By the time it had got round to the strangling, Patrick Ribbsaeter had lost it. He wasn’t thinking about her. He was thinking about his future prosperity.
‘When he was found out, and realised he could not charm his way out, he reverted to his other character type – violence.’
The jury was told Ribbsaeter has a previous conviction in Sweden for strangling a different ex-girlfriend.
Ribbsaeter told the jury that Mr Tokatlian was the aggressor and that he had only defended himself.
He said he had been drinking and had taken a tiny quantity of ketamine and an ecstasy tablet while the two others had taken much more.
In interview, Ribbsaeter told police he had seen red, had ‘the strength of ten men’ and added it was a case of ‘kill or be killed’.
Ribbsaeter, of no fixed address, denies causing Mr Tokatlian grievous bodily harm with intent, the alternative charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm, and unlawfully wounding Miss Al-Amoudi during the struggle.
The case continues.