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Saad Almadi, a US-Saudi Arabian citizen who criticized Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been released from a Saudi Arabian prison. Photo/Ibrahim Almadi
RIYADH – Saad Almadi (72), a citizen of the United States (US)-Saudi Arabia who criticized the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been released from a Saudi prison.
He has been in prison for over a year for his criticisms made via Twitter.
Neither Riyadh nor Washington officials were willing to confirm Monday’s release of Saad Almadi.
Saad Almadi is a longtime retiree in Florida. According to his son, Ibrahim Almadi, who speaks from America, his father had been at home with family members living in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, since Monday evening.
It is not yet clear whether the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will lift its travel ban after the prison sentence and whether Saad Almadi will be able to return to the United States.
The Florida man’s imprisonment is one of several alleged human rights violations that have soured relations between Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US President Joe Biden.
Both Mohammed bin Salman and the Biden administration have recently taken steps to restore better relations. The two countries are partners in a decades-old security arrangement in which the US provides security for Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich kingdom maintains oil supplies to global markets.
Saudi Arabia sentenced Saad Almadi last year to 16 years in prison, arguing that his critical tweets about how the kingdom is governed amounted to a terrorist act.
As US officials battled to win his release, and after Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in the summer in a bid to improve relations with the oil-rich country, a Saudi appeals court increased Saad Almadi’s prison sentence to 19 years.
