KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 21: Brunei’s fabulously wealthy ruler Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has married a 26-year-old former Malaysian television journalist, making her his second wife, reports said on Sunday.

The 58-year-old head of the oil-rich state married Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim at a private ceremony in the Malaysian capital on Friday night, The New Straits Times said in a front-page report.

It cited an unnamed guest as saying the ceremony was attended by family members, relatives and close friends of the couple. No other details were given.

The report could not be immediately confirmed in Brunei, where the private lives of the royal family are often shrouded in secrecy. Azrinaz was educated in Malaysia and spent several years as a broadcast journalist and later as a newscaster with private station TV3. She left TV3 in May this year, saying that she wanted to “venture into other undertakings”, the New Straits Times said.—AFP