News From The Archive

Posted: October 31, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET

" (Geneva) Swiss officials announced Wednesday they will try the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates for allegedly assaulting an American man who rebuffed his sexual advances in a Geneva hotel.

Sheikh Falah bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, 37, is accused of attacking Silvano Orsi, 39, with a belt in the posh La Reserve hotel four years ago.

Swiss prosecutor Daniel Zappelli said Wednesday that the case will be heard before a three-man tribunal.

If convicted the Sheikh could be sentenced up to two years in prison.
Al-Nahyan was charged last year, but Zappelli did not indicate why it took three years for a charge to be filed and an additional year to get to trial.

Orsi, a Rochester, New York native, told Sources that he is happy the case is finally going to be heard.

"This man needs to be brought to justice," Orsi said.
The former Swisscom AG executive walks with a limp and suffers nightmares as a result of the attack.

Orsi said he had no idea who Sheik Fallah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was before they met on the evening of Aug. 19, 2003. In fact, he didn't learn his identity, he said, until he stumbled bloodied and bruised to the hotel reception desk and pleaded with staff to call the police.

Orsi said he was sipping fruit juice while chatting in English and Italian with a Saudi friend in the bar at the hotel when a passer-by dressed in casual shirt and jeans asked where he was from.
The stranger offered him something to drink and Orsi declined, saying he didn't drink alcohol, yet the man soon sent over a bottle of Dom Perignon. Orsi said he politely waved his thanks but left the champagne unopened on the table because he was worried the offer was a ploy to force a confrontation.

A quarter-hour later, Orsi alleged, the man suddenly came up behind him, jostled his glasses, sat in his lap and tried to kiss and fondle him. When Orsi protested, he maintained the man became violently angry, threw him to the floor, punched and stomped him, smashed his glasses underfoot, then removed his belt and whipped him with the metal buckle.
All the time, Orsi said his attacker was yelling abuse, saying at one point that "no stupid American or Italian is going to tell me what to do!"

After hotel staff and others intervened, taking him into a side room, Orsi said he was getting first aid for a deep cut over his left eye and welts on his arms and back when the man appeared again and flailed at him with his belt, then did the same a third time after Orsi retreated to the reception desk.

By this time, with private bodyguards appearing, Orsi suspected he had run into "maybe some personality." He was told the man was a son of Emirates ruler Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Sheik Fallah's elder brother, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, was appointed president when their father died in November 2004.

At a closed-door hearing last year, the sheik acknowledged they got into a heated scuffle when he overheard someone remark that "this sheik is gay." But he insisted he never struck Orsi, either with his fists or his belt, nor arranged to pay him hush money.

Orsi said he moved to Geneva in 2000 to become head of international operations at Swisscom after working in a similar job in Rome for three years. In 2002, he joined a telecommunications consulting firm that dealt with chiefly Middle Eastern clients.

Orsi moved back to Rome in late 2003 after allegedly being confronted at a restaurant by associates of the sheik who threatened to shoot him if he didn't drop his complaint.

When he returned home to Rochester, Orsi said he discovered he wasn't eligible for health disability benefits because he hasn't worked in the United States for 10 years.

He has been unable to work since the attack."

Editor's Note : " You not only need to watch your ass form horny Pathans and Bengalis but also Horny Sheiks .......So be careful "