March 21, 2023
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has released a 72-year-old US citizen imprisoned for more than a year over tweets critical of the Saudi government, his son told Al-Monitor early Tuesday.
Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a retired project manager from Florida who also holds Saudi citizenship, faced 19 years behind bars for tweets he wrote while in the United States. His son, Ibrahim Almadi, said Tuesday that all charges against his father were dropped and that he remains in Riyadh under a travel ban.
Nearly a year after Almadi was detained while visiting family in November 2021, Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court sentenced him to 16 years in prison on terrorism charges linked to his tweets, some of which date back seven years. Last month, an appeals court increased Almadi’s sentence to 19 years.
Neither the US State Department nor the Saudi Embassy in Washington immediately returned a request for comment.
Rights groups say Saudi Arabia has only intensified its crackdown on dissent since US President Joe Biden’s controversial meeting in July 2022 with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to the Freedom Initiative, a Washington-based group that advocates for political prisoners, at least six US persons are currently detained or trapped under politically motivated travel bans in the kingdom.
Physician Walid Fitaihi, epidemiologist and writer Bader al-Ibrahim, and journalist Salah al-Haidar are among the Americans barred from leaving Saudi Arabia. Carly Morris, a California native who criticized Saudi Arabia’s guardianship laws on Twitter, told Al-Monitor she was placed under a 10-year travel ban last month.
Abdullah Alaoudh, Saudi director at the Freedom Initiative, described Almadi’s release as the result of tireless campaigning by his son and international pressure.
“There are far too many people in Saudi detention who don’t have the benefit of US citizenship to draw attention to their cases,” Alaoudh said. “Almadi’s release shows that strategic pressure works, and US officials should continue to press for release of prisoners and lifting of travel bans.”
His release comes less than a week after Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a privileged resolution that would require the State Department to produce a report on Riyadh’s domestic human rights practices as well as its involvement in Yemen’s civil war. If the resolution passes the Senate, the department would be required to submit a report within 30 days or Saudi Arabia’s security assistance would come to a halt.
Saudi Arabia releases US citizen Almadi jailed over tweets
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