Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman once boasted about killing the kingdom’s former monarch, a Saudia Arabian dissident has claimed.
Saad al-Jabri made the claim on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” programme, which aired on Sunday, according to a report.
Al-Jabri did not provide evidence on the news programme, but this is among the several unproven allegations he has made against the Saudi crown prince. Speaking to CBS News later, Saudi authorities described him as “a discredited former government official”.
Al-Jabri now resides in Canada. He claimed that in 2014 meeting with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was head of intelligence as interior minister at the time, MBS (as the crown prince is popularly known) boasted that he could kill King Abdullah. At the time, Prince Mohammed held no senior role in government but was serving as gatekeeper to the royal court of his father, at the time still heir to the throne.
“He told him ‘I want to assassinate King Abdullah. I get a poison ring from Russia. It’s enough for me just to shake hand(s) with him and he will be done’,” Al-Jabri said, claiming that Saudi intelligence took the threat seriously. The issue was handled within the royal family, al-Jabri said
King Salman ascended to the throne in January 2015 after his half-brother, King Abdullah, died of a lung infection at a hospital. It was later declared that the death was due to natural causes.
Al-Jabri has in the past accused MBS of plotting to kill him weeks after the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. An assessment by the US officials claimed that Khashoggi was killed in an operation approved by the Saudi crown prince.
