A Saudi government official, who served as a senior advisor to the oil kingdom’s former Crown Prince, has accused the Saudi monarchy of abducting his children in order to force him to end his self-exile in Canada.
With a doctorate in artificial
intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Saad al-Jabri was
until 2015 a rare example of a highly educated government administrator
among Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite. Dr. al-Jabri rose in the ranks of the
Saudi aristocracy in the 1990s under the tutelage of his patron, Crown
Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (pictured). Prince bin Nayef is the grandson
of Saudi Arabia’s founding monarch, King Abdulaziz, and until 2015 was
destined to succeed King Abdullah and occupy the kingdom’s throne.
Eventually, bin Nayef appointed Dr. al-Jabri as Minister of State and
made him his most senior and trusted adviser on matters of security and
intelligence.
Western intelligence officials credit Dr.
al-Jabri with transforming the Saudi security establishment in the
2000s, by introducing scientific methods in investigations, associated
with digital forensics, data mining and other advanced techniques.
Thanks to his British upbringing and education, Dr. al-Jabri operated
with ease and comfort in Western capitals. He soon became the primary
link between Saudi Arabia and the so-called “Five Eyes Alliance” —a
longstanding intelligence-sharing agreement between the United States,
Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The BBC recently cited
anonymous Western intelligence officials, who credited Dr. al-Jabri
with “defeating the al-Qaeda insurgency in the 2000s”. In one instance, a
source that his subordinates run inside al-Qaeda provided them with
critical information that helped prevent a sophisticated terrorist plot
targeting a cargo airliner bound for the American city of Chicago.
Al-Qaeda operatives had planted an explosive mechanism on the airplane,
disguised as a printer ink toner cartridge. Dr. al-Jabri and Saudi
intelligence notified their contacts in the British intelligence
community about the plan, which ultimately helped avert al-Qaeda’s goal
to blow up the airplane over Chicago, potentially saving hundreds of
lives.
But Dr. al-Jabri’s standing inside the
labyrinthine world that is the Saudi aristocracy changed suddenly in
2015, when King Abdullah died and was succeeded by King Salman. Salman
then quickly began to rely on his son, Mohammed Bin Salman, who he
eventually named as his successor. That meant that Dr. al-Jabri’s mentor
and protector, Prince bin Nayef, was effectively usurped. Bin Salman
abruptly fired Dr. al-Jabri in September of 2015, after he learned that
Dr. al-Jabri had secretly visited Central Intelligence Agency director
John Brennan in Washington, to seek advice about the new king and his
son.
In 2017, bin Nayef was abruptly fired from his post
as Minister of Interior and went under house arrest in Saudi Arabia’s
coastal resort city of Jeddah. That was effectively a bloodless palace
coup, which purged bin Nayef and everyone who was closely associated
with him. Fearing for his life, Dr. al-Jabri took his eldest son,
Khalid, and escaped to Canada in the middle of the night. They remain
there to this day.
Such purges are not uncommon in the
bloody history of the Saudi Arabian royal court. But now the plot has
thickened. On Monday, Dr. al-Jabri’s son, Khalid, said his two siblings,
Omar and Sarah, were kidnapped by Saudi security forces. Speaking from
Canada, Khalid al-Jabri said his siblings, who are in their early 20s,
were kidnapped on March 16 by 50 masked security men who stormed the
family’s house in Riyadh at dawn, having arrived there with 20 vehicles.
The house was then searched and security cameras were destroyed before
the men drove away with Dr. al-Jabri’s two children. They have not been
seen since.
Dr. al-Jabri’s family allege
that his two children are “being held as bargaining chips” by the Saudi
monarchy, who are trying to compel their father to return to Saudi
Arabia. Dr. al-Jabri says he fears immediate arrest and imprisonment as
soon as he steps foot on Saudi soil. His family say they have been
trying to negotiate with Saudi authorities and “meet on neutral ground”,
but without results. Now they have decided to go public. “We were
pushed into this”, says Khalid from his exile in Canada. “We are
patriots, we love our country, we don’t want to embarrass Saudi Arabia.
But kidnapping Omar and Sarah like this, it’s daylight thuggery by a
state”.
The BBC said on Monday that it reached
out to Saudi authorities requesting a comment on the allegations by Dr.
al-Jabri’s family. As of today, Saudi authorities have not responded.
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