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A US Citizen Jailed in Saudi Arabia Over a Bunch of Tweets Has Been Freed

US-Saudi dual-national Saad Ibrahim Almadi has been released from Saudi prison after more than a year, with all charges dropped, his son told VICE World News.
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Saad Ibrahim Almadi. Photo: Supplied

A US citizen who was jailed for nearly 20 years in Saudi Arabia for criticising the country’s rulers on Twitter has been freed from prison, his son has said.

Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old US-Saudi dual national, was detained in Riyadh in November 2021 while on a trip back to visit family. He was later sentenced to 16 years in prison and banned from leaving the country after his sentence was completed. 

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In February the sentence was increased to 19 years, but he was unexpectedly released on Tuesday and allowed to return to his home in the Saudi capital.

His son, Ibrahim Almadi, confirmed his father had been released but the family were now trying to contest the travel ban so he could return home to Florida.

“I am feeling good,” he told VICE World News, “but the fight is not over yet. The travel ban is another fight.”

Ibrahim Almadi had been campaigning for his father’s release for months, urging US President Joe Biden to intervene. Although all charges have been dropped against his father, he wants the US to keep up the pressure in trying to secure the release of its citizens in the region who are wrongfully imprisoned.

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Saad Ibrahim Almadi and Ibrahim Almadi. Photo. Supplied

Saudi Arabia is ruled by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, informally known as MBS, who has high ambitions of transforming the country into a more modern state. The tweets that landed Saad Ibrahim Almadi in jail were all sent while he was in the US, including criticism of the country’s rulers and references to the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Freedom of expression is highly restricted within Saudi Arabia and the country’s dire human rights record is often criticised. US intelligence agencies concluded that MBS himself approved the killing of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. 

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Almadi’s case is the second known incident of the Saudi regime jailing people travelling to the country over their Twitter activity. Salma al-Shehab, a UK-based PhD student, was jailed for 34 years over her Twitter activity. Around the same time, another Saudi woman, Nourah al-Qahtani, was jailed for 45 years over social media posts.

The cases were heard in notorious special Saudi courts, behind closed doors, where judges have the power to pass long prison sentences and even the death penalty without any way to appeal or request a fair trial.

Abdullah Alaoudh is the Saudi director at the Freedom Initiative, a US-based non-profit organisation advocating for prisoners wrongfully detained in the Middle East.

He said he’s “relieved” that Almadi has been released.

“He should have never spent a day behind bars for innocuous tweets,” he said. “There are far too many people in Saudi detention who don’t have the benefit of US citizenship to draw attention to their cases. Almadi was wrongfully detained, reportedly tortured, and released only after tireless campaigning by his son and international pressure.”