WASHINGTON (AP) – A graduate student at Northeastern University in BostonPrince Abdullah bin Faisal al Saud rarely mentioned that he was a member of Saudi Arabia great royal family, friends say. He avoided talking about Saudi politicsfocusing on his studies, career plans and his love for football.
But after a fellow prince – a cousin – was jailed in his homeland, Prince Abdullah discussed it with relatives in phone calls made from the US, according to Saudi officials who were somehow eavesdropping. On a trip back to Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdullah was imprisoned because of these calls. The original 20-year sentence was increased to 30 years in August.
Prince Abdullah's case, detailed in Saudi court documents obtained by The Associated Press, has not been reported before. But it is not isolated. Over the past five years, surveillance, intimidation and harassment of Saudis on US soil have intensified as the kingdom steps up repression under its de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to the FBI, rights groups and two years of interviews with Saudis living abroad. Some of those Saudis said FBI agents advised them not to go home.
The Saudi embassy in Washington, responding to an AP inquiry, said: “The idea that the government of Saudi Arabia — or any of its institutions — is harassing its citizens abroad is absurd.”
But in the same month that Prince Abdullah's sentence was extended, Saudi Arabia gave 72-year-old Saudi American Saad al Madi a virtual life sentence for tweets he had posted from his Florida home. Al-Madi was unexpectedly accused and imprisoned on a visit home to the kingdom. With Al-Madi's conviction, the kingdom broke with Saudi Arabia's long-standing practice of exempting citizens of the US, its longtime military protector, from the worst punishments.
Also in August, he sentenced a 34-year-old Saudi student in Britain, Salma al-Shehab, to 34 years in prison when she also visited the kingdom after tweeting about it.
All three sentences came weeks after President Joe Biden set aside his earlier condemnation of Saudi Arabia's human rights record to travel to the kingdom, despite criticism from lawmakers, rights groups and Saudi exiles.
It was a time when the US urgently needed the kingdom to maintain oil production. But Biden ended up with no more oil – the Saudis and OPEC cut production – or any improvement in human rights.
Saudi rights advocates say the jailings validate their pre-travel warnings: Biden's efforts to placate the crown prince only emboldened him.
Several authoritarian governments illegally monitor and strike against their own citizens in the United States, often in violation of US sovereignty, in what is called transnational repression. Many of the cases prosecuted in the US involve adversaries, especially China.
But Saudi Arabia's actions under Prince Mohammed stand out on their own high-tech intensity, orchestration and, often, ferocity, and because it comes from a strategic partner.
Freedom House, a research and advocacy group, says Saudi Arabia has targeted critics in 14 countries, including coordinated and directed targeting from the United States. The goal is to spy on Saudis and intimidate or coerce them into returning to the kingdom, the group says.
“It's troubling, it's terrifying, and it's a significant violation of protected speech,” Freedom House's Nate Schenkkan said of the recent jailings of Saudis based in the West.
In its statement rejecting claims that it is targeting critics abroad, the Saudi Embassy said: “On the contrary, our diplomatic missions abroad provide a wide range of services, including medical and legal assistance, to any citizen who seeks assistance when traveling abroad of the kingdom”. The statement did not refer to the Boston-based prince's imprisonment.
The State Department said it was looking into Prince Abdullah's case. In an email, call transnational repression in general “an issue of significant human rights and national security concern” and said he would continue to be held accountable. He did not directly address questions about Saudi Arabia's actions.
The FBI declined to comment.
Prince Abdullah, 31, comes from one of the branches of the royal family most targeted by detentions as critics or opponents since Prince Mohammed consolidated power under his aged fatherKing Salman.
A photograph from Prince Abdullah's undergraduate ceremony in the North East shows him in cap and gown, clean-shaven, chin up and beaming.
Friends say Saudi officials detained Prince Abdullah after he returned in 2020, on a government-provided ticket, to study remotely during the pandemic.
Saudi Arabian courts sentenced him to 20 years in prison followed by a 20-year travel ban. A Saudi court in August extended the term by 10 years.
As with others, he imprisoned, incl writers, journalists and supportersSaudi Arabia accused Prince Abdullah of acting to destabilize the kingdom, disrupt social unity and support the kingdom's opponents.
The kingdom uses terrorism and cybercrime laws; — applied in cases involving communication by telephone or computer — to issue unusually harsh sentences.
Saudi courts allege that Prince Abdullah used a Signal app on his cell phone in Boston to talk to his mother and other relatives about his cousin who was jailed by Prince Mohammed and had used a public phone in Boston to talk to attorney for the case. They say Prince Abdullah has acknowledged sending about 9,000 euros ($9,000) to pay bills at his cousin's apartment in Paris.
It is not known how Saudi Arabia monitored private phone conversations originating from the US, but in recent years, it has honed old and new spying tactics.
Rights groups believe that a citizen-stealing app developed by the Saudi government and still available on Google Play may have been used to report al Madi and al Shehab's tweets.
Investigations by research group Citizen Lab, media organizations and Amnesty International allege that Saudi Arabia is using Israeli military-grade spyware. Amnesty said it Spyware was installed on the journalist's phone Jamal Khashoggi's fiancee before he was killed by Saudi officials in 2018.
Saudi documents and anecdotal accounts from Saudi exiles depict years of Saudi government officials and student whistleblowers tracking the perceived subversion by students in the US
For Saudi exiles, “it's a machine of repression,” said Khalid al Jabri, whose once high-profile family has been targeted by the successor. That includes siblings jailed by Prince Mohammed, and what the family alleges was a Saudi assassination squad sent, unsuccessfully, to kill his father in Canada in 2018.
“They just want you to look over your shoulder. And that's what I do,” said Danah al Mayouf, creator of a YouTube channel critical of Saudi officials.
Since at least 2017, the FBI said in a release this year, Saudi government-backed “Saudi agents and Saudi nationals based in the U.S. have surveilled, harassed, and threatened critics of the Saudi regime in the United States with both digital as well as personal media. .”
Federal authorities under Biden have taken some steps on transnational repression. This includes increased surveillance and a warning delivered to embassies in Washington.
Federal prosecutors recently brought two of the first cases of spying and harassment against Saudi nationals in the United States.
San Francisco federal grand jury in August condemned a former Twitter employee who prosecutors say accessed personal data of Twitter users, including critics of the Saudi government.
A federal court in New York is tossing out a case against a government-paid Saudi national living in Mississippi. Ibrahim al Hussayen sent Saudi dissidents to the US social media messages, including “MBS will wipe you off the face of the earth” and “You think you're safe,” according to federal authorities.
Al Hussayen's lawyers told the court last week that he plans to plead guilty to lying to FBI agents. In an unusual move, lawyers asked authorities to drop further investigation.
Many Saudis in the US in interviews describe encounters with FBI agents about fears or suspicions of stalking. Four Saudis said the FBI informally advised them not to go to Saudi Arabia or enter the Saudi Embassy. Two said FBI agents told them they were on a Saudi Arabian retaliation watch list. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Saudi dissidents and supporters say the US is not doing enough to assure either the exiles or Prince Mohammed that Washington will act when Saudi Arabia targets critics in the United States. They describe a life in the United States of suspicious interactions with Saudi officials, strangers and acquaintances, online abuse and fears of speaking openly on unencrypted apps. Khashoggi's assassination in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul destroyed the long-understood ground rules between Saudi rulers and the ruled.
“It's targeting more people and, yeah, nothing's happening,” said Bethany al Haidari, a Washington-based researcher for the Middle East Political Prisoner Freedom Initiative.
“You know, if you can get away with murder, what else?” al-Haidari asked.
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
