Arab princess sues her ex-husband after not receiving ‘a penny’ since divorce

An Arab princess who said she has not received ‘a penny’ since divorcing her husband – a member of the Qatari royal family – last year is suing him for a £100million share of his oil fortune in the British courts.

Meshkah Tawfik, 40, who married Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim Al Thani in 1991, said he had left her with so little money that she was forced to sell her £240,000 Rolls-Royce Ghost as she couldn’t afford the £15,000 insurance. The couple, who both live in London, have two children – Prince Sultan, six, and Princess Sheikha, 13.

Tawfik said she cannot pay their school fees, adding that her four staff – a chef, nanny, bodyguard and driver – all work for free owing to her financial predicament, according to the Sunday Times.

The sheikh, 62, who was educated at Sandhurst and is said to be worth £800million, had married Tawfik in an Islamic ceremony in London.

The former interior, petroleum and finance minister obtained a divorce in Qatar, which she did not attend, after the couple become estranged several years ago.

Tawfik’s decision to settle their divorce in the UK is an example of ‘forum shopping’ – where the best legal jurisdiction is chosen to maximise the chance of a favourable outcome.

The mother-of-two lives in an £8million townhouse in Bayswater which, despite its price tag, is in state of disrepair, with peeling paint and a rat-infested basement.

‘I am suing him not for me but to get maintenance for the children. As members of the royal family they should not be living like this,’ she told the paper’.

In 2010, the Al-Thani family purchased Harrods – and Tawfik illustrated her once lavish lifestyle by producing a statement of her daughter’s credit card bill from the store.

It showed that the 11-year-old had spent over £90,000 there in 2011.

Sheikh Hamad is said to own a portfolio of properties in Britain, the Middle East and US. His uncle Khalifa, once emir of Qatar, was deposed in a bloodless coup by his son in 1995.

When Sheikh Hamad was found guilty of staging an abortive coup a year later, he and Tawfik left the country.

He was sentenced to death in his absence but this was revoked in 2006.

Tawfik has retained the services of family lawyer Ayesha Vardag. David Hodson, the sheikh’s lawyer, told the Sunday Times: ‘[My client] believes their family matters and the lives of their children are private.’