Beauty Queen Sues Monarch Over Son's Paternity

Oksana Voevodina and King Sultan Muhammad V

Russian model Oksana Voevodina and then-Malaysian King Sultan Muhammad V made headlines last year after their lavish wedding ceremony in Moscow attracted public attention. Their subsequent divorce left Voevodina alone with her now four-month-old boy who has not been recognised by the former king.

Twenty-seven-year-old Oksana has decided to go to a Russian court to make 50-year-old Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan recognise the paternity of their newborn child, the MailOnline reported.

The couple had a secret wedding in Malaysia in June 2018, followed by a glitzy reception in Moscow five months later.

The sultan is said to have been unhappy that details of the Moscow wedding ceremony appeared in the Russian media.

Their marriage quickly hit the rocks and the sultan left his then pregnant wife in January 2019 when he became fed up with the publicity their marriage had generated.

Their son was born in May.

Voevodina converted to Islam and changed her name to Rihana Oksana Petra in order to marry the former king, but she was never crowned a queen by the Malaysian rulers’ council.

Oksana, a former Russian model and Miss Moscow 2015 beauty pageant winner, said she has  filed a paternity petition with the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow demanding to establish paternity of her four-month-old boy with Sultan Mohammad V being indicated as the defendant.

The judge is thus set to demand a DNA test from the former monarch. Where a suspected father refuses such a test, or fails to attend hearings, courts in Russia invariably accept the paternity claim.

Oksana said she was compelled to sue her husband who had refused to accept her demands for a $30,000-a-month allowance for the child that was reportedly born in May and named Tengku Ismail Leon Petra ibni Sultan Muhammad V; as well as her demand for a $1.5m Moscow apartment and another $10m home in London.

The Sultan abdicated from the country’s throne in January 2019 amid pressure from the Malaysian public and the increased publicity that his marriage to the foreigner had caused.

While still remaining the ruler of Kelantan Province, he argued that he divorced Oksana in June 2019 by using the irrevocable Islamic procedure of Triple Talaq, reportedly granted by the Kelantan Shariah Court, according to the ex-monarch’s Singaporean lawyer Koh Tien Hua.

In an official statement later issued by the Royal Palace, Sultan Muhammad V expressed his regret over “the personal choices made in his private life” slamming his former wife over “lies on social media” and her “defamation” of the royal family, but did not outline the exact reasons for the couple’s divorce.

The sultan’s lawyer Koh Tien Hua also raised doubts over the boy’s paternity by saying that “there is no objective evidence as yet as to the biological father of the child”.

Oksana argued that she had received no confirmation of divorce and insisted on the former king being a father to her son.

“He looks every bit like his father and he has this Asian-looking face,” she told Mailonline.

“I have nothing to prove to anybody because (Leon) is his son, born in a legal marriage and he was a planned and desired baby” she added.