‘I’m here to sound the alarm about a psychopath, killer’: Dissident Saudi spy chief says MBS ‘poses a threat to America’ days before Biden visits him to beg for oil
- Saad Aljabri warned the US that Mohammed bin Salman is a ‘psycopath’
- The former spy chief said the crown prince sent a hit squad to kill him in Canada
- Joe Biden is embarking on a four-day tour of the Middle East this week
A former Saudi intelligence chief has warned that Mohammed Bin Salman ‘poses a threat to America’ just days before Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom this week.
Saad Aljabri, who was a top official in Saudi Arabia’s government, said the crown prince is a ‘psychopath’ and a ‘killer’, in reference to the murder of journalist Kamal Khashoggi.
Biden, who denounced Saudi Arabia as a ‘pariah’ when he was a presidential candidate, will embark on a four-day trip to the Middle East on Wednesday to beg for increased oil supplies.
Aljabri told 60 Minutes on CBS: ‘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.
‘A psychopath with no empathy, doesn’t feel emotion, never learned from his experience. And we have witnessed atrocities and crimes committed by this killer.’
Saad Aljabri (pictured) has warned that Mohammed Bin Salman ‘poses a threat to America’ just days before Joe Biden’s visit to the kingdom this week
Saad Aljabri, who was a top official in Saudi Arabia ‘s government, said the crown prince is a ‘psychopath’ and a ‘killer’
Aljabri, who served as number two in Saudi intelligence, was forced to flee to Canada following bin Salman’s coup in 2017, which deposed the spy chief’s boss Prince Nayef.
The same day, Aljabri, a father-of-eight, was told two of children were barred from leaving the kingdom and they remain in a Saudi prison.
His son-in-law has also been kidnapped by another country and returned to Saudi Arabia, he claims.
Following the killing of Khashoggi in 2018, a friend in a Middle Eastern intelligence service told Aljabri that another hit team from the kingdom would target him in Canada.
He said: ‘The warning I received, don’t be in a proximity of any Saudi mission in Canada. Don’t go to the consulate. Don’t go to the embassy. I said why? Said, they dismembered the guy, they kill him. You are on the top of the list.’
The dissident claims a six-person team arrived in Ottawa in October 2018 and lied to customs about knowing each other, carrying equipment for DNA analysis.
The group was deported.
Aljabri said a hit squad tried to enter Canada to assassinate him shortly after the killing of Khashoggi (pictured)
Aljabri believes he is being targeted because of the information he has on bin Salman.
He says this includes comments made by the current crown prince in 2014 when he said he would assassinate the sitting king Abdullah to clear the throne for his father.
Aljabri said: ‘I expect to be killed one day because this guy will not rest off until he see me dead.’
The first stop on Biden’s trip this week is to Israel and the occupied West Bank in the diplomatically sensitive visit.
He will travel to the West Bank town of Bethlehem, where Israel is accused of imposing military rule over millions of Palestinians.
On Saturday, Biden used an op-ed in the Washington Post – the same pages where Khashoggi penned much of his criticism of Saudi rule before his death – to declare that the Middle East has become more ‘stable and secure’ in his nearly 18 months in office.
He also pushed back against the notion that his visit to Saudi Arabia amounted to backsliding.
‘In Saudi Arabia, we reversed the blank-check policy we inherited,’ Biden wrote. He also acknowledged ‘there are many who disagree’ with his decision to visit the kingdom.
Biden, who denounced Saudi Arabia as a ‘pariah’ when he was a presidential candidate, will embark on a four-day trip to the Middle East on Wednesday
He pointed to his administration’s efforts to push a Saudi-led coalition and Houthis to agree to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire – now in its fourth month – after seven years of a war that has left 150,000 people dead in Yemen.
Biden also cited as achievements his administration’s role in helping arrange a truce in last year’s 11-day Israel-Gaza war, the diminished capacity of the Islamic State terrorist group in the region and ending the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.
As a candidate, Biden promised the Saudis would ‘pay the price’ for their human rights record.
The sharp rhetoric helped Biden contrast himself with Donald Trump, whose first official foreign trip as president was to the kingdom and who praised the Saudis as a ‘great ally’ even after the Khashoggi killing.
Biden’s tough warning to the Saudis came at a moment when oil was trading at about $41 barrel; now, prices are closer to $105.
The elevated oil prices are hurting Americans at the gas pump and driving up prices on essential goods, while helping the Saudis’ bottom line.
White House officials have said energy talks would make up one component of the Saudi leg of the president’s visit, but they have played down the prospect of the Saudis agreeing to further increase oil production because the kingdom says it is nearly at production capacity.
But Bruce Riedel, who served as a senior adviser on the National Security Council for four presidents, said the Saudi Arabia visit is ‘completely unnecessary’ under the circumstances.
‘There’s nothing that Joe Biden is going to do in Jeddah that the secretary of state or the secretary of defense, or frankly, a really good ambassador couldn’t do on his own.,’ Riedel said. ‘There’s no outcome that’s going to come from this that really warrants a presidential visit.’
Source: Read Full Article
