Saudi Arabia has sentenced a pensioner to 16 years in prison for tweets he posted which were critical of the regime.
Saad Ibrahim Almadi, a 72-year-old joint Saudi-US citizen, was arrested in November 2021 upon landing in Riyadh for a two-week stay in his native country for a work and personal trip.
Speaking publicly for the first time, his son has alleged that the Saudi government has tortured his father in prison and said that the US State Department mishandled the case.
“He had what I would call mild opinions about the government,” Ibrahim Almadi told the Washington Post.
He continued: “They took him from the airport. I feel empty inside. I feel dead inside. I feel betrayed. He’s not only my father, he’s my best friend. He is everything to me.”
The pensioner's social media posts included some criticism of corruption and poverty in Saudi Arabia as well as references to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi — the Washington Post columnist murdered by Saudi agents in the Istanbul consulate.
Mr Almadi has been charged with harbouring terrorist ideologies, supporting and funding terrorism and trying to destabilise the Kingdom. All of which he denies.
The Almadi family have been trying to secure his release but have grown increasingly frustrated at the US embassy, so decided to go public with the case — despite the State Department advising against speaking out
Ibrahim said no one from the US embassy in Saudi Arabia had visited his father until six months after his arrest in November last year and that no US officials had attended his sentencing despite having notified them of the hearing.
The US government has failed to designate the case as involving an American being “wrongfully detained”, which would give it a higher priority.
His son said his father's tweets merely showed him feeling at home in America while exercising his freedom of speech by posting the tweets on US soil.
He believes there are double standards over Saudi Arabia, saying the US would take firm action if someone was detained in Russia or Iran.
"But if you're held in Saudi Arabia, a barrel of oil is worth more than you," he told the BBC.
Mr Almadi has been given a sentence of 16 years in prison followed by a 16-year travel ban, meaning he would be a 104-years old before he could return to the US.
“The Biden White House’s inaction on American hostages in Saudi prisons led to the harshest sentence against an American abroad", Ali al-Ahmed, founder and director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs told the Washington Post.
Before travelling to Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden justified his trip in an op-ed. He, in part, pledged to free American hostages held by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
He wrote: "My administration has made clear that the United States will not tolerate extraterritorial threats and harassment against dissidents and activists by any government.
"We also advocated for American citizens who had been wrongfully detained in Saudi Arabia long before I took office."
But upon arriving in the Kingdom, Mr Biden fist-bumped bin Salman, a move many say has emboldened the Crown Prince.
Similarly, Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi student living in the UK at Leeds University, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and following and retweeting dissidents and activists.
While trying to return from a holiday she was detained.
