(Bloomberg) — Saudi Arabian authorities detained a brother and a nephew of Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on accusations of treason, according to a person familiar with the matter — in another of a series of crackdowns on royal relatives by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the throne.
Former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was previously in line to be king before being sidelined, and Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud — a brother of the current king — were arrested on Friday, the person familiar with the matter said. Mohammed bin Nayef’s brother, Nawaf, was also detained with him during a raid on their desert camp, the person said. The news was reported earlier on Friday by the Wall Street Journal.
The Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The arrests come at a time of increased pressure on Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 34-year-old de facto ruler. With oil falling the most in a decade on Friday, Saudi Aramco’s stock risks dropping below the initial public offering price on Sunday when trading resumes in Riyadh. The slump followed Russia’s refusal to agree to Riyadh’s call to slash production to offset the decline in demand from the coronavirus.
The royal court told members of the allegiance council, a group of royals that votes on matters of succession, that Prince Ahmed and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef had been plotting a coup, according to the person familiar with the matter.
“The Saudi leadership’s challenges have snowballed in recent days,” said Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East and North Africa at the Eurasia Group consultancy. He said recent developments may have made King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed’s branch of the royal family “more sensitive to risks of a coup.”
Saudi Arabia’s ties with the west have been under severe strain in recent years. In 2018, the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul sparked international outrage. More recently Amazon.com boss Jeff Bezos alleged that Prince Mohammed personally hacked his phone — a claim vehemently denied by Saudi officials.
Friday’s arrests will shake the kingdom’s hierarchy even further. A full brother of King Salman, Prince Ahmed is one of the only surviving sons of Saudi Arabia’s first king, and was once viewed as a potential candidate for the throne. He’s also a senior member of the allegiance council.
In 2018, he appeared in a rare video speaking to protesters in London, stirring controversy about potential discord in the ranks of the ruling family. He later issued a clarifying statement to dismiss questions about his loyalty. In October 2018, he returned to the kingdom after a period spent abroad.
Since King Salman ascended to the throne in 2015, the current crown prince has embarked on the most sweeping crackdown against other royals in the kingdom’s history, ordering security forces to arrest senior princes and prominent businessmen in what was declared to be a crackdown on corruption.
Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was detained at the Ritz Carlton Hotel for months, and Prince Miteb, son of the late King Abdullah, was removed from his post as head of the powerful National Guard. While they were later released, many royals — including Prince Turki bin Abdullah, another son of the former king — remain under house arrest or are banned from traveling abroad. Prince Mohammed bin Nayef is his older cousin, the previous heir to the throne and interior minister before being pushed aside in 2017.
The Saudi royal family has tens of thousands of members. While many of them pledge loyalty to the current crown prince, his consolidation of power has marginalized or alienated other relatives.
(Updates with Aramco shares in fourth paragraph)
To contact the reporters on this story: Glen Carey in Washington at [email protected];Vivian Nereim in Riyadh at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at [email protected], Karl Maier, Andrew Davis
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