Washington (Somalia Today) — Former Saudi intelligence chief Saad Aljabri is seeking assistance from a U.S. federal court in his $5 billion corruption battle, The New York Times reports.Â
According the the report, His legal team wants testimony from former American security officials, arguing their statements could protect him in a related high-stakes lawsuit in Canada.
The Canadian trial is set to begin next year. A Saudi state-owned company, Sakab, alleges Aljabri embezzled over $5 billion while serving as a top security aide.
Aljabri, however, has consistently rejected these claims. He argues the lawsuit is politically motivated. He insists he spent the funds on legitimate, top-secret counterterrorism operations run in partnership with the United States.
Aljabri was a key aide to former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. For years, Bin Nayef was a close partner of US intelligence agencies.
A 2017 palace coup, however, ousted Bin Nayef and consolidated the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Aljabri fled Saudi Arabia that same year.
Feud enters new chapter
This new request in a Virginia federal court is the latest move in a bitter, global feud. Aljabri’s lawyers frame the fraud accusations as part of a wider “political persecution” campaign.
They link it to efforts to silence critics, a campaign they compare to the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A 2021 US intelligence report concluded MBS had approved the killing.
Saudi Arabia vehemently rejected the US report’s conclusion. Lawyers for the crown prince have called Aljabri an “international fugitive.” They accuse him of fabricating allegations to distract from his own crimes.
Saudi officials also detained two of Aljabri’s adult children in 2020. Aljabri says this was an attempt to coerce him into returning home, a claim Saudi Arabia denies.
Both sides have filed multiple lawsuits in the US and Canada. Most of these cases have stalled due to the secrecy surrounding the information.
For example, a US judge dismissed Aljabri’s 2020 lawsuit against MBS. The judge granted the crown prince immunity as a foreign head of government.
Navigating ‘State secrets’
Similarly, the Saudi company Sakab sued Aljabri in Massachusetts to freeze his assets. The US government intervened in that case. It invoked the rare “state secrets privilege,” which effectively shut down the litigation by arguing it would harm US national security.
Now, Saad Aljabri seeks US testimony once more, placing the US government in an awkward position.
His Virginia filing asks a judge to compel former US officials to participate in his Canadian defense. This would mean revisiting information the government previously deemed too sensitive to disclose.
Legal experts say the request is unlikely to succeed. “I just can’t imagine a U.S. court saying, ‘It was excluded in Massachusetts, but we’re going to produce it for someone in Canada,'” said Ingrid Brunk, an editor of the American Journal of International Law.
However, the case highlights the controversial nature of the state secrets privilege.
Critics argue that officials often overuse it. “It should be a scalpel, but it’s often used as a sledgehammer,” said Jeffrey Vagle, who has studied the privilege. He noted it can become “an easy way for the government to sweep something under the rug.”
Canada’s attorney general has also intervened in the lawsuit there. Experts expect a Canadian court to rule by year’s end on what, if any, of the proposed evidence Aljabri can introduce.
