Juffali’s ex-wife wins right to claim slice of his fortune

The ex-wife of a Saudi billionaire has won the right to make a claim on his fortune after the court of appeal ruled that the man’s diplomatic immunity was irrelevant to the case. Sheikh Walid Juffali is being sued by Christina Estrada, a former Pirelli calendar girl, for a share of his £4bn fortune after the couple, who had been married for 13 years, split up.

The bench, headed by the master of the rolls, Lord Dyson, had been forced to consider whether the high court was right to dismiss as “spurious” the Saudi businessman’s claim to have been protected from litigation because of his role as permanent representative to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for the Caribbean island of St Lucia.

Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, took the highly unusual step of criticising the high court judge’s decision to strip diplomatic immunity from the sheikh in the divorce proceedings. The Foreign Office (FCO) warned that if the decision stood, British diplomats could be hauled before the courts of any country in which they are serving and their position “scrutinised, and their status unjustifiably curtailed”.

Hammond bluntly said the court’s ruling “should not be upheld or endorsed”. In an unusual step, the FCO submitted an opinion from Tim Eicke QC backing the Saudi billionaire. It said the judge had “erred” in attempting to “look behind” the Saudi billionaire’s accreditation as a diplomat.

Hammond argued that only the “executive [acting through the FCO] as part of the royal prerogative of conducting foreign relations” can decide to “accept [or not] a diplomat”.