WASHINGTON (AP) — Saudi Arabia has forced a Florida retiree to try to renounce his U.S. citizenship after he was jailed over social media posts critical of the kingdom’s crown prince, according to the man’s son.
Retired Saad Al Madi, 74, is one of at least four Saudi-American citizens who accuse Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The government to put pressure on them The US-based Middle East Human Rights Group said they should renounce their American citizenship.
The alleged tactic used by a key US strategic partner, which has not been previously reported, tracks similar efforts Silence even mild criticismIncluding the threat of imprisonment and an exit ban like the one that prevented Al Madi from returning to the United States after his release after more than a year in a Saudi prison.
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“There are Saudi princes who come to the United States for routine medical examinations, so why can’t an American citizen return to their home country for the sake of their health?” Ibrahim said the past about his father.
“All this is because we do not want to upset the feelings of our ally,” he said in an interview from Washington. “If this had been Russia, Iran or North Korea, his wrongful detention would have been announced months ago.”
The Saudi Embassy in Washington acknowledged receiving a request for comment on these allegations, but did not respond otherwise. The Saudi government does not recognize dual citizenship. It regularly rejects criticism of its actions, saying it is part of a years-long campaign against corruption, terrorism and other security threats.
The plight of Sheikh Almadi and others could complicate US efforts to turn the page on tensions arising from the 2018 war. The killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
President Joe Biden on his 2020 election campaign He vowed to make the Saudi royals outcasts After US intelligence officials concluded that the Crown Prince It authorized the killing of the journalist residing in the United States Inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. The prince denied any involvement.
But once he took office and faced him Gas prices rise That lasting damage to Democratic support, Biden toned down his criticism. During a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2022, Pres Awkward fist bump With Prince Mohammed.
Saudi-American relations are expected to warm further under President-elect Donald Trump The real estate empire and family have extensive business dealings With the largest oil exporter in the world.
Al Madi, a retired project manager who immigrated to the United States in the 1970s, was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2021, when he arrived for a planned two-week visit to see his family. Saudi officials confronted him with tweets he posted over the past few years in the United States, including one about Khashoggi’s killing and another about the crown prince’s consolidation of power.
Al Madi was soon sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism charges stemming from the tweets. Saudi Arabia released him after more than a year, but imposed an exit ban preventing him from returning to his home in Boca Raton, near Miami.
For several months after his release, Al-Madhi received threatening phone calls from men his son claimed were agents of the feared intelligence police, whose mission is to eliminate threats to the kingdom’s rulers. Then, last November, they summoned Al Madi to a villa in Riyadh, where they promised the exit ban would be lifted if he renounced his American citizenship, his son said.
Feeling helpless, his son said he signed a document and followed instructions to try to return his US passport to the US embassy.
By law, Americans seeking to renounce their citizenship must follow a lengthy process, and American officials must consider their actions voluntary. This did not happen in the past case, the State Department said, adding that he remains a US citizen and is receiving consular support.
“The Department will continue to advocate for Mr. Al Madi with the Saudi government and hopes that he will soon be able to join his family in the United States,” the agency spokeswoman said.
Abdullah Al-Awda, a senior director at the Center for Middle East Democracy, a Washington-based human rights group, said he knows of three other Saudi-American citizens who reported that they were pressured to renounce their American citizenship. He said they are not activists or outspoken critics of the Saudi government.
Al-Awda said the past issue seemed the most egregious: “They are kind of forcing him.”
The group wrote to the Biden administration in December to ask it to make a final push for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Americans, US residents and their close relatives who are either imprisoned in Saudi Arabia or banned from travel, in what activists say are attempts to suppress them. Shut them up.
Among those prevented from leaving is Aziza Al-Yousef, a US green card holder and retired professor who was among several activists who were imprisoned in 2018 – and later released – over peaceful demonstrations and petitions to allow women to drive in the kingdom.
It is unclear how Trump’s presidency will affect the handling of such cases, but his relationships with Saudi leaders are deep.
Trump Organization last month It unveiled plans to build a luxury high-rise A residential building in the coastal city of Jeddah. and a private equity firm controlled by Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner Received an investment of $2 billion From the sovereign wealth fund controlled by the Crown Prince.
Two weeks after the US election, Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk were seen sitting next to the wealth fund chief at a UFC bout at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Saudi Arabia is the most coveted prize in US efforts to get Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords — a landmark foreign policy achievement during Trump’s first presidency — and end the US ally’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia’s anti-past exit ban, and similar practices against dual nationals by China, are aimed less at extracting foreign policy concessions from the United States than at arbitrary detentions by adversaries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. But it can damage relationships.
“From a political perspective, it is very difficult for the United States to act when it comes to one of its allies,” said Mickey Bergman, CEO of Global Reach, which works to secure the release of Americans imprisoned abroad.
This does not matter to the son of the past. In March, he sent an email to several State Department officials, including the consular official whose father met in Riyadh, complaining about what he saw as the lack of US action to secure his father’s freedom.
“We cannot continue to wait for the ship to sink,” he wrote in the email he provided to The Associated Press.
He decided to go public after spending his fourth year separated from his father.
“Words can’t describe it,” said Past Jr., who put his financial career on hold and moved to Washington to defend his father. “I was focusing on developing my life, and I am still only 28 years old. But all I think about now is what I should do, how to act, what to say, and what not to say, to secure my father’s release.”
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Goodman reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
