Khashoggi blackmailed over photos

Once one of the richest men in the world, Adnan Khashoggi, today emerged as the victim of a blackmail plot after being approached with a demand for £30,000 to return a set of photographs of him.

The news comes at the same time as personal diaries and another set of photographs belonging to his ex-wife Soraya, were discovered by the Evening Standard in a junk shop in west London.

There is no link between the two events and today Soraya told of her deep shock. She said: "I am just devastated and in shock. I don't know how these things got there. I can't believe my diaries, and my son's baby book, were in a junk shop. It is wonderful that they have been recovered."

Mrs Khashoggi, who runs a flower shop in Fulham, said she had no idea how such personal possessions ended up in a shop in Shepherd's Bush. The diaries were discovered in Great Expectations in Shepherd's Bush Road. Owner Tony Vaughton said he had recovered the albums from a storage unit after the previous owner had stopped paying the bill. "A lot of strange stuff comes my way from these clearances," he said.

Soraya said she was doubly shocked at the discovery of her diaries in the junk shop because she had learned just a few weeks ago that her former husband, a Saudi businessman, was the victim of the blackmail attempt.

She said: "Adnan rang me and said that someone had approached him for the return of photographs for £30,000. I said to him 'are you being blackmailed?' and he said 'yes'. Adnan rang me the night before last and I told him I had heard the Standard had obtained some photographs and I said is the man still trying to get money from you and he said 'yes'."