Saad al-Jabri.Photo: 60 Minutes/Twitter
A former Saudi Arabian intelligence official claimed in a new interview that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmantalked about killingthe kingdom’s former monarch, King Abdullah, in 2014.
Saad al-Jabri, who fled to Canada in 2017, told60 Minutesof an alleged meeting between bin Salman and Mohammed bin Nayef, who was then heir to the throne, during which bin Salman boasted that he could kill the sitting king.
“He told him, ‘I want to assassinate King Abdullah,’ " al-Jabri claimed in the interview that aired Sunday. “‘I get a poison ring from Russia. It’s enough for me just to shake hands with him and he will be done.’ "
Al-Jabri further claimed that Saudi intelligence officials took the claim seriously, with the royal family recording a meeting in which they discussed the threat — two copies of which, he alleged, still exist.
“I know where they are,” al-Jabri said of the purported recordings of the meeting.
Speaking to60 Minutes, al-Jabri called bin Salman “a psychopath with no empathy” and claimed that he was told a Saudi assassination team was also sent to kill him.
“The warning I received, ‘Don’t be in a proximity of any Saudi mission in Canada. Don’t go to the consulate. Don’t go to the embassy.’ I said why? Said, ‘They dismembered the guy, they kill him. You are on the top of the list,’ " al-Jabri said.
After he fled to Canada, al-Jabri said the team of six would-be assassinations followed him, arriving at the Ottawa Airport in October 2018 carrying equipment purportedly used for DNA analysis. He said the six people were deported, with the Canadian government telling60 Minutesin a statement: “We are aware of incidents in which foreign actors have attempted to… threaten… those living in Canada.”
The Saudi Embassy did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on al-Jabri’s claims.
Asked if he thinks bin Salman fears him, al-Jabri told60 Minutes, “He fears my information.”
Al-Jabri said that both his daughter and son are being held in Saudi prisons, where they have been since he fled the Kingdom. He added that his son-in-law was also recently kidnapped in another country and transferred back to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi government did not respond to the show’s request for an interview, but provided a statement calling al-Jabri “a discredited former government official with a long history of fabricating and creating distractions to hide the financial crimes he committed, which amount to billions of dollars, to finance a lavish lifestyle for himself and his family.”
“He saved Saudi lives — many of them — and he saved American lives,” former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell told60 Minutesof al-Jabri.
Morell added that there are other instances in which al-Jabri saved American lives, though the details of those incidents remain top secret: “I can’t talk about them because they’re still classified … There are many. Many.”
Al-Jabri, for his part, told60 Minuteshe expects that bin Salman is out for revenge.
“I expect to be killed one day because this guy will not rest off until he see me dead,” he said.
source: people.com
