Princess in prison: Saudi royalty drama
A top Saudi royal remains locked up as pleas for her freedom go ignored
IT SOUNDS like a saga straight out of a thriller: an Arab princess and her daughter are snatched from their seafront penthouse in the dead of night. The only clue to their disappearance is a video showing a gang of eight armed men waiting in the lobby of their building. There are no ransom notes, no pressure to open the royal vaults and no political demands – yet the princess and her daughter haven’t been seen since.
This is far from fiction. In March 2019, Princess Basmah of Saudi Arabia and her daughter, Suhoud al-Sharif, were taken from their home in Jeddah and arrested for allegedly using a fake passport to seek medical treatment in Switzerland.
The princess and her daughter (now 28) have since been detained without being charged at Riyadh’s al-Ha’ir Prison. The maximum-security prison is the country’s largest and since coming to power in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has jailed several senior royals as well as government leaders, businesspeople, intellectuals and activists.
Now the international community has been approached to free Princess Basmah and her child.
Henry Estramant, the princess’ legal adviser, and Lucy Rae of the British human rights organisation Grant Liberty have asked British foreign secretary Dominic Raab and Commonwealth secretary-general Patricia Scotland to intercede on the two royals’ behalf.
The 56-year-old princess suffers from a heart condition that requires urgent medical attention. She also has a colon condition and osteoporosis.
“We believe her life depends on her release,” Estramant says.
Those in her inner circle say Basmah was detained because of her human rights work within the kingdom. She was captured when suspicion arose the real reason she wanted to leave the country was to help probe the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Basmah has in the past appealed for help from her cousin, the crown prince. But her pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
Saudi authorities are facing renewed diplomatic pressure following a damning report on human rights abuses. The report, released by US President Joe Biden, revealed Prince Mohammed bin Salman sanctioned Khashoggi’s murder and dismemberment. Basmah’s supporters hope MBS, as the prince is known, will now be open to setting her free.
BASMAH comes from a long line of royalty. She’s the granddaughter of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul Aziz, and the youngest daughter of the country’s second king, King Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. Her mother, Jamila Merhi, was chosen as one of King Saud’s 22 wives in an arranged marriage. In 1964, he was overthrown by his brother Faisal and fled to
Geneva. King Saud, who reigned over Saudi Arabia when it grew rich from its eastern oil fields, died wealthy in 1969. He left everything to his 115 children.
Basmah’s inheritance is said to be worth billions. Her fortune includes Swiss bank accounts, acres of land, jewellery, luxury cars and houses all over the oil-rich kingdom. But the princess has never been motivated by money. Thanks to her generosity and commitment to help the needy, Basmah was known as the Oprah Winfrey of the Middle East among those who worked with her.
“She was totally committed to people and their plights,” says Ronnie Goodman, an events manager who organised her public life for nearly a decade.
Basmah spent her early years in Beirut, Lebanon, with her mother. When her father died, they sought asylum in the UK. She attended private school in England and then went to colleges in Oxford and Switzerland. In 1988 she wed Shuja al-Shari, but the couple split in 2007.
When she returned to Saudi Arabia, she started restaurants and a media business, all while raising five kids.
Basmah continued to blaze a trail when she became the first Saudi royal woman to appear on the cover of a magazine in 2007. “No woman was allowed to have their picture put in a magazine or newspaper,” she said at the time. “It opened ways for women and journalists.”
Despite her privileged background, the princess wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. She visited refugee camps, campaigned for human rights and lectured at the UN General Assembly.
“There was nothing she wouldn’t do to ease the suffering of others, from a financial perceptive as well as just putting herself in harm’s way,” Goodman says. Erieka Bennett, head of the Diaspora African Forum, got to know the princess well when they started working together in 2010. “She knows she came from a very privileged background, so she used that to help humanity,” Bennett says.
BASMAH hasn’t been seen in two years. She’s only contacted the outside world once – in 2020, 13 months after her disappearance. She told her followers she was being unlawfully detained, her health had deteriorated and she’d been denied medical care.
“I’m beseeching my uncle, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, and my cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to review my case, and to release me as I’ve done no wrong,” Basmah wrote on Twitter. “My current health status is very critical.”
Basmah was born with a weak heart and in the past she flew from her homes in the UK and US for treatment with a specialist in Geneva.
In Saudi Arabia, royals need special permission to leave the kingdom. Basmah’s two applications to the royal court went unanswered.
Desperate, she rented a medically equipped private plane from Turkish company Redstar Aviation but the plane never left the tarmac as the pilot didn’t get permission to take off. Critics speculate the royal family grounded the flight, fearing what Basmah could do in Turkey, given her history of rights advocacy.
Basmah and her daughter were taken on 28 February 2019, a day before Basmah’s birthday. In the months leading up to it, she’d demanded King Salman return the vast lands her father left her, as well as $2 billion (then R28,6bn) held in Swiss bank accounts.
The princess might remain in prison until she gives up the claim for her father’s property, but sources say much of her wealth has already been plundered by the 15 000-strong royal family.
She’s also called for constitutional reform in Saudi Arabia, a change that would see King Salman lose his iron grip as the oil kingdom’s absolute monarch.
Critics say Basmah’s unlawful detention is part of the king and his son’s systematic plan to silence protesters.
“Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s rampant repression of all forms of critics, the space for dissent has shrunk greatly,” says Rothna Begum, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This is particularly the case for women, many of whom have been silenced, imprisoned or are in exile right now.”
At first the princess could speak to her family a few times a week, but the phone calls, texts and video messages have dried up and her social-media accounts have gone silent. As Basmah’s health continues to deteriorate, her family and friends are putting their hope in the hands of global institutions.
“I pray their hearts will be touched,” Bennett says.