PARIS — A French judge has issued an arrest warrant for a Saudi princess related to suspicions that she ordered her bodyguard to hit a plumber working in her Paris apartment, a person close to the investigation said on Thursday.
The princess, Hassa bint Salman, is the daughter of King Salman, the Saudi monarch, and the half sister of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The arrest warrant was issued in December but reported in the French media only this week. Like a number of members of the Saudi royal family, the princess owns property in France.
The incident described in the warrant occurred almost 18 months ago in Princess Hassa’s apartment on Avenue Foch in the well-heeled 16th Arrondissement, and caused a minor stir at the time. The plumber said he had taken a photograph or photographs with his cellphone so he could place the furniture back where it had been before he began his work.
In the plumber’s account to the police, which was quoted in the French magazine Le Point, the princess saw him snap a photo or photos, screamed for her bodyguard, and then in the bodyguard’s presence shouted, “This dog must be killed. He doesn’t deserve to live.”
At that point the bodyguard grabbed the plumber and punched him in the head, according to the account.
The bodyguard then tied the plumber’s hands and ordered him to get down on his knees and kiss the feet of the princess, it said. He was allowed to leave only hours later, and his tools were confiscated.
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The marks on his body were visible to the police when they took his testimony later, according to the account in Le Point.
The plumber filed a complaint, and an investigation was opened. Within a month of the incident, the bodyguard was charged with engaging in violence using a weapon, illegally confining a person, theft and making death threats.
Princess Hassa’s lawyer at the time, Elie Hatem, told Le Parisien, a daily newspaper, that the princess believed that the plumber was trying to take photos to sell to the media and that she was trying to grab the phone from him when the bodyguard arrived.
After the incident, Princess Hassa returned to Saudi Arabia, where she has been put under house arrest by her half brother, Prince Mohammed, according to a relative who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
The princess has stopped attending family functions or going out in public, although she was permitted to attend a funeral this week, the relative said.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris, and Ben Hubbard from Beirut, Lebanon.