A BRIT with a claim to the Romanian crown is wanted over £126 million property scam and is expected to be extradited to Bucharest.
Paul Philippe Al Romaniei, also known as Paul of Romania, said he was merely trying to get his rightful land back.
Paul, 75, who has British, French and Romanian nationality, received an extradition warrant in 2020 after he was given a jail term of three years and four months for influence peddling and abetting a crime.
The so-called king and 17 other defendants were involved in a scam to procure properties, including Romania's royal farm, which was confiscated during the communist era.
The crime had cost the Romanian government a whopping £126 million loss.
On December 17, 2020 the police visited Paul's home in Bucharest, only to find out he's disappeared to Portugal.
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He was arrested in France two years later in June 2022, but was temporarily released to await his extradition trial.
Now the claimed king urges the French court to refuse a request to send him back to Bucharest to serve his sentence.
Paul believed he only tried to claim back the land that once belonged to royal family, and that is his by right.
He said that Romania was targeting him because he descended from an illegitimate branch of the royal family.
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His lawyer, Laurent Pasquet-Marinacce, said in a hearing: “The acts that got [Paul] convicted are directly connected to the status as royal heir that he claims.”
Romania was a monarchy from 1881 to 1947, when it became a republic that soon fell under the influence of the USSR.
Paul's grandfather, King Carol II, ruled as a king from 1930 to 1940.
Paul's father, Carol Lambrino, would have been an heir to the throne but he became an illegitimate prince once his parents' marriage got annulled.
King Carol II married a commoner, Zizi Lambrino, without consent of the ruling king at the time.
His wedding was never approved and got annulled a year later.
Prince Carol tried to reclaim his lands and got recognised as King Carol II's son in Portugal during his lifetime and posthumously in Romania.
The king who never was moved his family to London to be closer to the European royalty.
During this time, Paul attended Gordonstoun school in Scotland with King Charles III.
Paul has continued his father's fight to reclaim their ancestry on the grounds that Prince Carol's marriage was carried out in a religious ceremony and was never annulled in an Orthodox church.
But Romania's last king refused to recognise Paul and his father as the members of the royal family.
King Michael I, who abdicated in 1947 and went into exile, said no Romanian king has ever granted a title to Carol Lambrino and his descendants.
The appeal court in Paris is to give judgement on the extradition request on November 29.
An unassuming lawyer from India claimed he's an heir to the French throne after his family was exiled 4,500 miles away.
Balthazar Napoleon IV de Bourbon, 65, believes he is a direct descendant of France's Bourbon family and the rightful ruler of France.
He claims even though he was born Indian, he has French royal blood.
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