Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has detained three members of the royal family, including a brother of the king and a former crown prince, a sign of how fully Crown Prince Mohammed has consolidated power, and that he may have seen a potential threat to it.
The detentions were disclosed Friday by a member of the royal family and a person close to the royal family, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the danger of speaking out publicly about the crown prince.
A former senior American official also confirmed the detentions.
The most senior royal detained was Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of King Salman, who for a time had been the great hope of family members and other critics who wished to block Crown Prince Mohammed, 34, from taking the throne.
The former crown prince who was arrested, Mohammed bin Nayef, is also a former interior minister who developed close ties to American intelligence agencies during years of work together. He was ousted from both of those roles by the current crown prince in 2017 and he has effectively been under house arrest since then.
His younger brother, Prince Nawaf bin Nayef, was also detained.
The detentions were not announced by the Saudi government, and an official of the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
The roundup of the three royals comes at a delicate moment for Prince Mohammed, who is the kingdom’s de facto ruler.
His unilateral decision to halt visits to Mecca in response to the coronavirus — a move with few if any precedents in Islamic history — has stirred grumbling within the kingdom and the broader Muslim world. Conservatives noted that even as he halted pilgrimages, modern entertainment venues he brought into the kingdom, like movie theaters, remained open.
At the same time, his trumpeted plans to modernize the Saudi economy have shown little progress or have fallen behind schedule. His plans to sell shares in the state oil company in a major international stock market were shelved in favor of a domestic offering on the smaller Saudi exchange.
Now, concerns about the impact of the coronavirus have slashed the price of oil, which is the main source of the kingdom’s revenue.
Crown Prince Mohammed’s signature foreign policy initiative, the five-year-old Saudi military intervention in Yemen, has also foundered, creating a humanitarian disaster there.
He has also come under fire abroad for the killing of a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, by Saudi agents in Istanbul in 2018.
One possible motive for the detentions may have to do with the aging of Prince Mohammed’s father, King Salman, 84. It is possible that the crown prince may be seeking to lock down potential challengers to his own succession before his father dies or abdicates the throne.
Prince Ahmed, however, had given no indication that he intended to challenge Crown Prince Mohammed.
Prince Ahmed is widely seen as a figure of special gravitas in the family because he is King Salman’s only surviving full brother. Both are sons of the kingdom’s modern founder. Succession had previously passed from brother to brother, until King Salman elevated his own son to crown prince in 2017.
Prince Ahmed was seen to challenge Crown Prince Mohammed in 2018, when he was accosted by protesters in London chanting against the Saudi war in Yemen.
“What does this have to do with the Saud?” Prince Ahmed said in comments caught on video, referring to the Saudi royal family. “Those responsible are the king and his crown prince.”
Critics of the crown prince began posting pledges of allegiance to Prince Ahmed on the internet. But he quickly made clear he had no intention to turn on the crown prince, issuing a statement saying that his comments had been misinterpreted, and since then had appeared to maintain warm relations with his nephew.
Prince Mohammed has been known to lock up opponents before, most famously in 2017, when he detained hundreds of influential businessmen and members of the royal family at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh.
The government said the arrests were part of a crackdown on high-level corruption, but critics said they were part of an effort by the young crown prince to consolidate power.
Associates of many of those detained said they were subjected to torture and physical abuse, then coerced into turning over billions of dollars in private wealth in exchange for their release.
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Source : Nytimes
