Saudi official living in exile in Canada
A former Saudi intelligence official and high-ranking government adviser has been living in hiding in Canada for the past two-and-ahalf years, as the Saudi government has been mounting an increasingly aggressive campaign to force him to return home, culminating with the disappearance of two of his children.
Since 2017, Saad Aljabri, well-known in Western diplomatic and intelligence circles, has been living in Canada in exile. All but two members of his immediate family managed to escape the kingdom. The disappearance in March of his son Omar, 21, and daughter Sarah, 20, were described by a source close to the family as “a hostage situation” in an escalation of tensions between the Saudi crown prince and Aljabri.
“The ransom is Dr. Saad’s return to the kingdom,” the source said.
These new details, which have slowly become public in recent weeks, raise questions about Canada’s already tense relationship with Saudi Arabia, as well as whether the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s aggressive pursuit of Saudis abroad — such as the assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 in Istanbul — could come to Canada.
Thomas Juneau, a professor in the faculty of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, said it’s remarkable how little we know about Aljabri’s presence in Canada, or what it means for Canada-saudi relations.
CHILDREN VANISHED
He cautioned that it’s not clear what could happen next.
“Saudi Arabia has gone after dissidents abroad ... this did not begin with MBS (Mohammed bin Salman),” said Juneau. “That whole range of, not just assassinations and renditions, but pressure more broadly on dissidents, Saudi Arabia does that — and it does it a lot.”
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs said it “is concerned by the detention of Saad al-jabri’s two children in Saudi Arabia” in an email to the National Post.
“Canada and Saudi Arabia do not have an extradition treaty, and there are currently no extradition proceedings in progress regarding Mr. al-jabri,” the email said.
Canada has had a contentious relationship with Saudi Arabia in recent years. In 2018, Chrystia Freeland, then foreign affairs minister, tweeted a statement in support of Samar Badawi and Raif Badawi — dissidents with ties to Canada — and called for their release. Saudi Arabia reacted swiftly, recalling its ambassador from Canada, sending Canada’s ambassador home, and accusing Canada of “blatant interference in the Kingdom’s domestic affairs.”
In April, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Liberal government announced it had signed a $14-billion deal with the kingdom for the sale of light-armoured vehicles. The Liberals, who inherited the deal from then-prime minister Stephen Harper, had ordered a review of the deal and froze export permits after the assassination of Khashoggi; that review concluded in December 2019, and the Liberals said it found no evidence that Canadian-made military equipment had been used in human-rights abuses.
“It’s really difficult to say” where Aljabri’s presence in Canada fits into the foreign affairs picture, Juneau said. “Relations are bad,” he said. “This is probably just one more hurdle, but it’s not the only one.”
The roots of the flight of the Aljabri family date back to 2015. Aljabri had, until 2015, been a key figure in the relationship between Western and Saudi intelligence agencies, in part responsible for the modernization of Saudi intelligence after May 2003 bombings in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Gerald M. Feierstein, senior vice-president at the Middle East Institute, a Washington, D.c.-based think-tank devoted to studying the Middle East, and Barack Obama’s ambassador to Yemen between 2010 and 2013, said Aljabri was a key partner in security and intelligence in the region.
In fact, Feierstein said, it was the work of Aljabri and his intelligence team, working under Mohammed bin Nayef when he was the Saudi minister of the interior, that in 2010 tipped off Western intelligence agencies about plans by al-qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to use printer-cartridge bombs on two cargo planes.
“That was definitely the work of Saad and his team in developing that information and getting a timely notification out,” said Feierstein.
As for his ouster, beginning in 2015, according to an extensive Washington Post column, written by foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius, Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the king and now the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, had two issues with Aljabri: he was opposed to Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and in a suggestion his family has rejected, it was claimed he had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The source close to the family, who agreed to speak with the National Post on condition of anonymity, said in actuality, Mohammed bin Salman needed “to sideline” Aljabri, in order to oust Mohammed bin Nayef, who is the nephew of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and, at that point, was the next in line for the throne.
As bin Nayef’s right-hand man, Aljabri’s life in exile began in the spring of 2017, shortly before an overhaul of the government and the new line of succession for the Saudi throne. Since 2017, bin Nayef has been under house arrest in Saudi Arabia.
The situation has escalated further in recent months: In early March 2020, bin Nayef and several other high-ranking royals and prominent Saudis were arrested, on suspicion of plotting a coup.
It was in the wake of this crackdown that Aljabri’s two children disappeared from their home in the Saudi capital. The Washington Post reported that over the years, the Saudi government had been using the two children to pressure Aljabri to return home, and that an extradition request — country unknown — at some point during Aljabri’s flight from Saudi Arabia, was made but dismissed.
“In a direct communication from Prince Mohammed (bin Salman) in September 2017, Saad Aljabri was told that he would have to return to Saudi if he wanted his children (Omar and Sarah) to be allowed to travel,” wrote Saad’s son, Khalid Aljabri, in a tweet this week.
Khalid Aljabri, through the family source, declined to speak with the National Post.
“MBS (Mohammed bin Salman) remains concerned about the potential threat that MBN (Mohammed bin Nayef ) might pose to his taking over in the post-salman era; Saad would be somebody who conceivably be an important figure in an MBN move of any sort,” Feierstein explained.
Saudi authorities are “sinking to new lows in going after the families of former officials out of favour with the current leadership,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.
Canada’s foreign ministry said “for privacy reasons, we are unable to provide further details on Mr. Saad al-jabri’s status in Canada.”
In a tweet in May, Khalid Aljabri said this was the fourth Eid al-fitr — which fell on May 23 to 24 — without Sarah and Omar.
“This time without the comfort of a call or even a text message,” he wrote. “Wherever you are, I hope you are well ... I love you.”
SAUDI ARABIA HAS GONE AFTER DISSIDENTS ABROAD ... THIS DID NOT BEGIN WITH MBS.