Case shows limits of Saudi tolerance
WASHINGTON — A week before President Joe Biden’s scheduled visit to Saudi Arabia, lawyers for a Saudi company controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman delivered a jarring message in a filing with a federal appeals court: National security arguments made by America’s top intelligence official were being used to support a “strategic fiction.”
This dismissive tone on the eve of a presidential visit meant to repair the U.S.-Saudi relationship illustrates a problem that will confront Biden when he visits MBS, as the crown prince is known. When it comes to sensitive topics, such as the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi or other human rights problems, the Saudi leader doesn’t seem interested in accountability or compromise.
The underlying legal dispute is complicated, but it evokes some fundamental issues. As the United States reengages with the kingdom, is Saudi Arabia ready to bury past feuds? Can it provide assurances that human rights violations, such as the Khashoggi murder, won’t happen again? Are the two countries truly ready to work together on a shared counterterrorism agenda?
The sharp language from the kingdom’s lawyers came in a brief filed Friday in a case involving Saad Aljabri, a former senior Saudi counterterrorism official who has emerged as a chief nemesis of MBS. The kingdom accuses Aljabri of stealing $3.47 billion in funds from Sakab Saudi Holding Co., a government front company. Aljabri has responded that he can’t defend himself without disclosing the secret counterterrorism activities that Sakab was funding in cooperation with the CIA.
Aljabri’s warning that the case could reveal sensitive intelligence was bolstered by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. She filed a sworn statement last August, supported by the Justice Department, invoking the “state secrets” privilege to ban discussion of issues in the case that, if revealed, could cause “exceptionally grave” harm. U.S. District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, who was hearing the Sakab case, ruled in October that Aljabri couldn’t defend himself without the banned information. Gorton dismissed the Saudi case in December.
It was the judge’s action, following a recommendation from America’s top spy chief, that prompted Friday’s Saudi riposte. Aljabri’s “supposed inability to litigate this case without disclosing U.S. state secrets is a strategic fiction,” argued the kingdom’s lawyers, denouncing the district court’s “draconian remedy of dismissal.” The brief was filed with a federal appeals court in Boston.
MBS’s lawyers appear to be reaching a similar dead-end in parallel litigation in Canada. Canada’s attorney general sought an injunction last month, at the request of the U.S. government, to prevent Aljabri from disclosing secret information to defend himself in the case. If Aljabri can’t respond fully to the allegations in Canada, that case may be dismissed, too.
The Aljabri battle is wrenching for senior U.S. officials who worked closely with him on counterterrorism projects when he was a top adviser to former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who MBS toppled in 2017 to assume de facto control of the kingdom. Former CIA directors George Tenet and John Brennan, and many other senior CIA officials, have praised Aljabri’s work as a counterterrorism partner.
A grim consequence of MBS’s seeming vendetta against Aljabri was the arrest and imprisonment in March 2020 of his two youngest children, Omar and Sarah, then 20 and 21, and the arrest and torture of his son-in law, Salem Almuzaini. According to Aljabri, MBS told him that his children would be released if he returned home to face inquiries, making the children, in effect, hostages. A U.N. working group on arbitrary detention called for the three Aljabri family members’ release in a report issued in May.
A final footnote to this case is that Aljabri has offered to pay back money that MBS alleges he stole, if his family members are released. That restitution proposal was made to MBS’s lawyer in the kingdom on Feb. 7, 2022, according to a source familiar with the offer. Details of this settlement offer have been shared with the White House, the source said, adding that the Saudis haven’t responded.
Biden’s rationale for meeting with MBS is that, despite these human rights issues, Saudi cooperation is important for long-term U.S. national security reasons. That’s realpolitik, direct and simple, but Biden needs to get a real partnership in exchange for his pragmatic approach.
A key issue is whether MBS will drop his grudges and focus on common interests, too. His diversion of Saudi security services to attack political enemies, such as Khashoggi and Aljabri, has been a costly distraction. For example, the Saudis missed the radicalism of Air Force 2nd Lt. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who killed three Navy sailors during training in Pensacola, Fla., in December 2019. Even the notorious bone-saw doctor, Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy, who allegedly dismembered Khashoggi’s body in Istanbul in October 2018, was trained to use modern forensic tools, such as DNA evidence, against terrorists.
Biden can’t bring back Khashoggi. But he can ask MBS to release Saudis who are unjustly detained in the kingdom, such as Aljabri’s family. If it’s time for a Saudi-American restart, as Biden believes, then it should be a two-way process.