Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) issued a new report shedding light on the case of Salem Almuzaini, a Saudi national, who has been arbitrarily detained by the Saudi State Security Agency since August 24, 2020.
Almuzaini's family last heard from him on May 31, 2021, during a very brief call from a Saudi prison. Other than this call, he has been held incommunicado since December 2020.
Almuzaini is the son-in-law of Saad Aljabri, a close advisor to the former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef whom Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) saw detained and tortured; Aljabri is now suing MBS in U.S. federal court.
Saudi authorities first detained Almuzaini without charge on September 27, 2017 and held him until January 18, 2018. During this time, they subjected him to torture and abuse. Saudi officials first released Almuzaini only after he surrendered large sums of money and financial assets to the government's sovereign wealth fund. Upon his release, Saudi officials banned Almuzaini from travel and forced him to wear an ankle monitor before detaining him again on August 24, 2020.
Between his initial and current detainment, from January 2018 to August 2020, Almuzaini recounted his detention and torture to his wife Hissah Saad Almuzaini, who lives outside of Saudi Arabia, over a series of phone calls. Almuzaini also recorded a lengthy first-hand account of his experience and asked Hissah to release this account should Saudi officials detain him again. These accounts and Hissah Almuzaini's testimony are recorded in an affidavit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 30, 2021. Many of the Saudi security officers who detained, interrogated, and tortured Almuzaini also have been implicated in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, including Badr Lafi Alotaibi, a Major in Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Directorate.
Emirati State Security officials first arrested Almuzaini on September 26, 2017, in Dubai and extradited him to Saudi Arabia the next day. Saudi authorities then detained Almuzaini in Jeddah and transferred him to al-Ha'ir prison in Riyadh, before transferring him to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh along with numerous prominent Saudi business executives, royal family members, and former government officials. Saudi officials then forced those detained to transfer the bulk of their money and assets to the Saudi government as a condition of their release from arbitrary arrest at the Ritz Carlton.
Among the assets, Saudi officials forced Almuzaini to transfer to the government was Sky Prime Aviation, a company founded by former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and located in Dubai. Almuzaini held a 25% ownership stake in Sky Prime Aviation and was the company's CEO. Almuzaini transferred all of the company's assets, including its private aeroplane fleet, to the Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, in November 2017.
Less than a year later, MBS used two of the company's private aeroplanes to transport members of the 15-person hit squad that killed Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Saudi authorities, particularly Major General Salah al-Jutaili, also attempted to lure Salem Almuzaini's wife, Hissah, to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul less than a month before Khashoggi's murder at the same location.
