The Saudi Royal Family Directory is the comprehensive source for biographic and geneological information on the Saudi Arabian Royal family. The database includes over 5,000 records of Saudi Royal family members. You can search the database and view the family tree for free. For online biographic reports, check out the subscription page.

An Imprisoned Princess: Red Lines Crossed or Factional Dispute?

refusal to budge or arbitrary arrest?

The first major "purge" took place in November 2017, when hundreds of princes and businessmen were detained at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh. The standing of some, such as Mit'ab bin Abdallah, once seen as a leading contender for the throne, and al-Walid bin Talal, one of the world's richest men, made the arrests (and alleged torture) all the more shocking. Others seemed a complete mystery; the names of all those held is still unknown, except for several dozen. The reason given at the time was an all-embracing and vague charge of "corruption", although few details were forthcoming. Most were eventually released after having "reached a settlement with authorities" - Mit'ab was set free after paying more than $1bn, and al-Walid was said to have offered up many times that (although he later said, cryptically, that no assets had actually been transferred).

Was this genuinely a crackdown on corruption, as per official accounts? Even foreign entities such as investment firms lauded the effort, praising the long term benefit this would have on the business environment. The fact that corruption is endemic comes as a surprise to no one, and royals in particular have often benefitted from their status and position to profit, so any proper anti-corruption drive would rightly be heralded. But few of those involved had any dark cloud of suspicion over their business dealings, and the number of detained princes who might be considered a "threat" to MbS seemed disproportionate. The crackdown continued, too - other sons of the late Abdallah found themselves in trouble. Faysal is currently being held incommunicado, having been arrested on March 27 (his brothers Mish'al, and Turki, a former Riyadh governor, had already been taken into custody). And there was worse to come - Ahmad, the king's full brother and widely considered a genuine contender to succeed him, was lured back to the Kingdom from abroad, after being given assurances he would be safe. Despite misgivings, he returned and has now vanished from sight, along with his son Nayif.

Others are harder to account for. Salman bin Abd al-Aziz was a minor royal who posed no apparent challenge to the succession. Along with his father, Salman was held in solitary confinement for a year at the high-security al-Ha'ir prison before mysteriously returning to his villa after a U.S. lobbying effort, but has since disappeared again. In some cases, there is a remote connection with a perceived "threat", but few are clear cut. Is MbS retaliating for slights, criticisms, or unknown manoeuvrings behind the scenes? Unquestionably, that is dangerous ground, considering what transpired with journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, but are financial considerations in play as well?

It is impossible to know how successful the attempt to recoup the assets claimed in the "anti-corruption" drive has been. The authorities backtracked over and over again on the total dollar amount, starting with a figure of over $800bn and later bringing that down to just over $100bn. Even that seems far-fetched, given the overall net worth of the individuals detained, unless we are to suppose they each had half their total wealth confiscated. The practicalities of actually tracking down these assets complicates matters further - much would be located in foreign jurisdictions, and banks are not always willing to oblige such demands. Perhaps the effort was simply miscalculated and ill-considered. Even so, the strange case of Basmah and her inheritance dispute suggests there may be multiple, concurrent factors at play. Given the propensity of the crown prince to lash out at perceived threats, it is not hard to imagine pressure being applied on spurious grounds to justify her imprisonment, to satisfy an internal family dispute. If so, the attempt to derail her inheritance quest, which may have started out as a way to turn the screws, has taken an potentially deadly turn for the worse.

Previous