Former Saudi intelligence official Saad Al Jabri claimed in an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), uses a squad of mercenaries to carry out extrajudicial kidnappings and killings. The ex-official also revealed other potentially damaging details of how MBS uses brutal tactics to eliminate opponents and quash dissent.
Al Jabri said MBS’ hitmen, called the “Tiger Squad,” are responsible for targeting and killing Saudi critics of the Crown Prince living abroad. “It was created to do the dirty job for MBS,” he said.
Al Jabri said the squad, also known as the Rapid Intervention Force, was responsible for the brutal murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018. Additionally, he claimed that the squad was sent to kill him in Canada earlier that year.
In 2020, Al Jabri filed a lawsuit in a United States federal court in Washington DC against MBS and the Tiger Squad over an alleged plot to kill him. In the complaint, he said he was warned by a whistleblower about the squad and alleged that it carried out extrajudicial killings, rape, and torture of critics.
Al Jabri used to work as an advisor to ex-Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, who was removed from the line of succession by MBS in 2017 and subsequently placed under house arrest. Al Jabri fled the Gulf country following the coup and has been living in exile in Canada.
Al Jabri also told CBS that during a 2014 meeting with Bin Nayef, MBS said he could kill then-King Abdullah to make way for his father’s rise to the throne. “He told him, ‘I want to assassinate King Abdullah. I [will] get a poison ring from Russia. It’s enough for me just to shake hand[s] with him and he will be done,’” he said, noting that the issue was handled within the royal family.
“I am here to sound the alarm about a psychopath, killer, in the Middle East with infinite resources, who poses threat to his people, to the Americans, and to the planet,” Al Jabri said about MBS. He noted that the Crown Prince has “no empathy” and “never learned from his experience,” and “we have witnessed atrocities and crimes committed by this killer.”
CBS also interviewed Al Jabri’s eldest son, Khalid, whose siblings Sarah and Omar are detained in Saudi prisons and being tortured. He claimed that MBS directed the kidnapping of his brother-in-law from a third country as a “proxy” for Al Jabri. “The first night he was kidnapped, he received more than a hundred lashes. He was tortured. He was beaten on his back, on his legs,” he added.
The Saudi embassy in Washington responded to Al Jabri’s claims by saying that it was a distraction from the crimes committed by the former intelligence official. The embassy said Al Jabri’s crimes “amount to billions of dollars” and that he was part of a list of corrupt officials.
The embassy also praised MBS for his reforms that have “put an end” to corruption in the Kingdom and led to “unprecedented economic and social development” as well as the “empowerment of youth and women.”
Al Jabri’s allegations add more pressure on the Saudi Crown Prince to undertake greater political reforms and put a halt to the harassment, kidnappings, and killings of dissidents.