The ex-wife of the sultan of Brunei would lose £1 million a day gambling in casinos around the world, according to a former aide on trial in London on charges she stole jewelry from the woman.
Mariam Aziz, a former flight attendant who received a £4 billion divorce settlement at the end of her 21-year marriage to the king of the oil-rich state, traveled the world playing roulette for 14 hours a day and had to resort to selling jewelry to settle her gambling debts, according to testimony given by the defendant, Fatimah Lim, who denies the charges.
Lim said she was ordered by Aziz to sell jewelry worth more than £18 million, including two rare diamonds in rings that had been gifts from the sultan.
The former bodyguard said she earned £700 a month, but members of Aziz’s entourage each received £3,000 in cash when they accompanied her to casinos abroad, but they had to gamble with it.
“I would just like to keep the money but Ms. Aziz said I had to play,” Lim testified. “I was born into a Muslim family and gambling is not allowed in my religion.”
Lim said she was also expected to accompany her employer into toilets and wait with her in the cubicle when they visited casinos.
“I would wipe the toilet seat for her and prepare water in a bottle for her to wash and then when she finished, I had to flush whatever she had done.”
