Qatari billionaire cannot be sued over torture claim, London court rules

One of the world’s richest men cannot be sued in London over claims that agents acting on his behalf falsely imprisoned and tortured a British citizen, because he is protected by diplomatic immunity, the high court has ruled.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is worth an estimated £8bn, claimed that because he had diplomatic and state immunity the UK did not have jurisdiction to hear a case brought by Fawaz al-Attiya, a British citizen and former official spokesman for the emirate.

Attiya alleged that Hamad bin Jassim had ordered his detention for 15 months, the majority of which he spent in solitary confinement and where he was also “subject to threats and psychological abuse”. He also claimed that Thani, also known as HBJ, arranged for his property to be confiscated.

The claims were rejected by HBJ, whose lawyers say the “extremely serious allegations are, without exception, a combination of distortion, exaggeration and wholesale fabrication”.

Attiya, 47, was born in London, educated in Roehampton and now lives in Newmarket. He had been seeking damages of hundreds of millions of pounds for the loss of ancestral land when the case was rejected. Attiya said he would lodge an appeal. Justice Blake ruled the court had no jurisdiction to hear the claim on two grounds, explaining that there was “no judicial authority on how a former prime minister of a sovereign state could be sued in a private capacity for inducing breaches of duty by other public officials”.

HBJ is a well-known business figure, having been in charge of Qatar’s $200bn sovereign wealth fund from 2000 until 2013, overseeing a series of high-profile investments in Harrods, the Shard and London’s Olympic Village.

In June 2013 HBJ stepped down from the posts of prime minister, foreign minister and head of the Qatar Investment Authority after his ally, the Qatari emir, abdicated in favour of his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Six months later HBJ was added to the Foreign Office diplomatic list, eventually given the rank of “minister-counsellor”. The listing as a diplomat means he and his two wives and 15 children enjoy legal immunity in Britain under the Vienna convention of 1961.

The Foreign Office said it was “ultimately for the court to decide whether a foreign diplomat enjoys immunity”.