In the last two years, three Saudi princes living in Europe have disappeared. All were critical of the Saudi government – and there is evidence that all were abducted and flown back to Saudi Arabia\u2026 where nothing further has been heard from them, according to a report on the BBC website.<\/p>\n
Prince Sultan bin Turki<\/p>\n
Early in the morning on 12 June 2003, Saudi prince Sultan bin Turki bin Abdulaziz is being driven to a palace that belongs to his uncle on the outskirts of Geneva. It\u2019s the king\u2019s favorite son, Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd, who has invited him to breakfast.<\/p>\n
Abdulaziz asks Sultan to return to Saudi Arabia – where he says a conflict over Sultan\u2019s criticisms of the Saudi leadership will be resolved.<\/p>\n
Sultan refuses, at which point Abdulaziz excuses himself to make a phone call and after a few moments masked men rush in. They beat Sultan and handcuff him, and then a needle is plunged into his neck.<\/p>\n
Unconscious, Sultan is rushed to Geneva airport – and carried on to a Medevac plane that is conveniently waiting on the tarmac.<\/p>\n
What had Prince Sultan done that could have led his family to violently drug and kidnap him?<\/p>\n
The previous year he had arrived in Europe for medical treatment, and started giving interviews critical of the Saudi government. He condemned the country\u2019s record on human rights, complained about corruption among princes and officials, and called for a series of reforms.<\/p>\n
Ever since 1932, when King Abdulaziz, known as Ibn Saud, founded Saudi Arabia, the country has been ruled as an absolute monarchy. It does not tolerate dissent.<\/p>\n
Prince Turki bin Bandar<\/p>\n
Prince Turki bin Bandar was once a major in the Saudi police, with responsibility for policing the royal family itself. But a bitter family dispute over a contested inheritance landed him in prison, and on his release he fled to Paris, where, in 2012, he began posting videos on YouTube calling for reform in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
The Saudis reacted as they had with Prince Sultan, and tried to persuade Turki to return. When Ahmed al-Salem, the deputy minister of the interior called, the prince recorded the conversation and posted it online.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody\u2019s looking forward to your return, God bless you,\u201d says the deputy minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking forward to my return?\u201d replies Turki. \u201cWhat about the letters your officers send me? \u2018You son of a whore, we\u2019ll drag you back like Sultan bin Turki.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The deputy minister replies reassuringly: \u201cThey won\u2019t touch you. I\u2019m your brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo they\u2019re from you,\u201d says Turki. \u201cThe ministry of interior sends them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turki went on publishing videos until July 2015. Then, sometime later that year, he disappeared.<\/p>\n
Saud bin Saif Al-Nasr<\/p>\n
Around the same time as Prince Turki vanished another Saudi prince, Saud bin Saif al-Nasr – a relatively minor royal with a liking for Europe\u2019s casinos and expensive hotels – shared a similar fate.<\/p>\n
In 2014 Saud began writing tweets that were critical of the Saudi monarchy.<\/p>\n
He called for the prosecution of Saudi officials who\u2019d backed the overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi the previous year.<\/p>\n
Then, in September 2015, Saud went further.<\/p>\n
After an anonymous Saudi prince wrote two letters calling for a coup to remove King Salman, Saud publicly endorsed them – the only royal to do so. This was tantamount to treason, and may have sealed his fate.<\/p>\n
A few days later, he tweeted: \u201cI call for the nation to turn the content of these letters into popular pressure.\u201d Then his Twitter account went silent.<\/p>\n
Another dissident prince – Prince Khaled bin Farhan, who fled to Germany in 2013 – believes Saud was tricked into flying from Milan to Rome to discuss a business deal with a Russian-Italian company seeking to open branches in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n
\u201cA private plane from the company came and took Prince Saud. But it didn\u2019t land in Rome, it landed in Riyadh,\u201d Khaled says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt turned out Saudi intelligence had fabricated the entire operation,\u201d he claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow Prince Saud\u2019s fate is the same as Prince Turki\u2019s, which is prison\u2026 The only fate is an underground prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prince Sultan, being higher up the royal pecking order, was shuttled between prison and house arrest. But his health was also deteriorating, so in 2010 the royal family allowed him to seek medical treatment in Boston, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n
What he did from the safety of his US exile must have horrified the Saudis – he filed a criminal complaint in the Swiss courts, accusing Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd and Sheikh Saleh al-Sheikh of responsibility for his 2003 kidnap.<\/p>\n
His American lawyer, Clyde Bergstresser, obtained a medical record from King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, where Sultan was admitted on 13 June 2003, which indicated that a tube had been placed into his mouth to help him breathe while anaesthetized, and that one side of his diaphragm was paralyzed – presumably as a result of the assault.<\/p>\n
For the first time a senior Saudi royal was launching a criminal complaint, in a western court, against another family member.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Sultan boarded an aircraft presuming it was headed for Cairo, but midway, flight attendants took out weapons, subduing him and taking him to Riyadh.<\/p>\n
A number of people, including foreign nationals, who were unwittingly accompanying Sultan had taken images before the assault on board the plane. They had had their phones seized and images erased, save one picture. They were then held for three days before being sent back to their countries of origin.<\/p>\n
There has been no news of Prince Sultan since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the last two years, three Saudi princes living in Europe have disappeared. All were critical of the Saudi government – and there is evidence that all were abducted and flown back to Saudi Arabia\u2026 where nothing further has been heard from them, according to a report on the BBC website. Prince Sultan bin Turki […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,6],"tags":[549,552,551,545,550,177,546,547,548],"yoast_head":"\n