Man decorated by Malta offers 100 Bentley cars to 100 Saudi bombers

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the country’s richest men and a member of the Saudi royal family, marked the end of Saudi Arabia’s first military campaign in Yemen this week by tweeting to his three million followers on Twitter: In appreciation of their role in this operation, I am honoured to offer 100 Bentley cars to the 100 Saudi [fighter] pilots.

Al-Waleed bin Talal was decorated by Malta’s head of state last December, receiving Malta’s highest honour.

His gesture went down well on his home turf (and no doubt, even better at the Bentley Motors Ltd workshops in Crewe, England), but reception was, understandably, not so great in Yemen.

100 Bentley cars to 100 pilots who bombed Yemen. Not single ambulance to its hospitals they devastated, one Yemeni tweeted. Another, whose home was bombed by those Saudi pilots, tweeted: Prince Al Waleed gave 100 Bentleys to Saudi pilots. I got my apartment blown up. Yet I bet my spirits are higher than all those pilots.

Yemen is one of the world’s poorest countries. Somebody tweeted from Jordan: So that’s what it’s all about. What was it – 100 or 200 lives for a Bentley? That’s how cheap human life is.