Qatar Emir's Brother Accused of Ordering Murder, Going on Drug Binges
Asharq Al-Awsat
"Gulf"
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2343026/qatar-emirs-brother-accused-ordering-murder-going-drug-binges
Friday, 19 June, 2020 - 11:45
Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. The Daily Mail
The brother of Qatar's emir has ordered his staff to kill Americans on US soil and personally beat his chauffeur to death in Qatar, according to a federal civil lawsuit filed in Massachusetts this week.
Britain's The Daily Mail, which has exclusively obtained a copy of the lawsuit, said the allegations are against Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
The court papers, filed by six American former staffers of the Sheikh, claim he went on days-long sleepless "binges", ordered two of his US staff to kill people and among others threatened to kill staff himself.
One of the plaintiffs, Ramez Tohme, the son of Michael Jackson's last manager Tohme Tohme, claims in the lawsuit that the Qatari prince threatened to kill him, saying "you can call your father and tell him that you are going to be buried in the desert."
Tohme, 33, claims the Sheikh kidnapped him and kept him prisoner in Doha for days, attempted to frame him for a crime and had him thrown in jail, said The Daily Mail.
Another of the plaintiffs, Oak Ridge Tennessee-based Terry Hope, worked for Sheikh Khalid's car racing team, Al Anabi Racing.
In the lawsuit he claims that between 2010 and 2012 the Sheikh ordered him to murder his rival, the then owner of the American Drag Racing League and the owner's wife, four times.
Hope, 54, claims the Sheikh told him he "would be financially 'set up' for the rest of his life" if he performed the contract killings, but he refused.
Hope claims that in 2016, while working for Sheikh Khalid in Doha, the prince drove out to the desert and beat his chauffeur to death in front of him.
"The more that the chauffeur pleaded, the more aggressive Defendant Khalid beat him," Hope claimed in his lawsuit, recounting the alleged murder that he says he saw from just a few feet away.
"Plaintiff observed Defendant Khalid to pull out his pistol, grab the chauffeur by the back of the head, and place the pistol in the chauffeur's mouth," the former racing team member claimed.
"Plaintiff observed Defendant Khalid to then strike chauffeur in the back of the head, observed the chauffeur to fall limp, observed the chauffeur's chest to cease rising, and the chauffeur to eventually become lifeless."
The Daily Mail has previously revealed the claims of one of the plaintiffs, ex-US Marine Matthew Pittard, that the royal told him to kill two people, and the Sheikh later threatened to kill him after he refused.
Sheikh Khalid hired Pittard, 46, in 2017 as his security director and soon after made the illegal request, the documents claim.
"In approximately late September of 2017 and November of 2017, in Los Angeles California, Defendant Khalid asked Pittard to murder a male and female who Defendant Khalid viewed as threats to his social reputation and personal security," the legal filing said.
"Pittard refused to execute these unlawful requests."
The Sheikh's legal team, lawyers for his US company and the Qatari embassy did not respond to repeated requests by The Daily Mail for comment.
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