A Saudi Arabian dissident living in London was told to “emulate” the life of the US whistleblower Edward Snowden by a Metropolitan police officer, amid death threats he received after fleeing his country.
Col Rabih Alenezi, 44, had been a senior official in Saudi Arabia’s security service for two decades, but sought asylum in the UK after he claimed to have been ordered to carry out human rights violations. His life was threatened for criticising the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Alenezi, who carries a diplomatic passport, arrived in London in February, but doesn’t feel safe. He told the Guardian that he received an average of 50 death threats a week and feared he could be killed in the same way as Jamal Khashoggi, a vocal critic of the Saudi regime and Washington Post journalist, who was murdered inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2018.
Most of the threats to his life also threaten dismemberment and are sent to his Twitter, YouTube and TikTok accounts, which Alenezi uses regularly to speak out against oppression by Prince Mohammed. He has gained a high following online and lives on donations he receives from his followers. Local media reported that a bounty of $250,000 (£200,000) had been placed on his head by the Saudi royal court.
Alenezi reported these threats to the Met police at the end of March. He received an email a month later advising him not to appear on social media, but instead to model the life led by Snowden, a US National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified files to the Guardian 10 years ago.
The email from a detective stated: “We have already discussed a number of safeguarding methods … the model of living you ought to emulate is that of Edward Snowdon [sic], which is something we have also discussed. I appreciate the situation that you are in, and am not underestimating the risk against you.”
It is unclear what the police meant. Snowden has been living in exile in Russia since 2013, but appears online in public debate.
The suggestion raises questions about the attitude of the police and their understanding of political asylum seekers, who often come to Britain believing that they will be free to speak out.
Alenezi said: “I refuse to be silenced. [That is why] I left Saudi Arabia, so I could have freedom of expression.”
Since leaving his country, Alenezi, who is one of the highest ranked defectors from the kingdom in recent history, has made several allegations about human rights violations he was told to carry out, including an order in 2020 by the Saudi ministry of interior to crack down on the Huwaitat tribe in Tabuk province, the location of Prince Mohammed’s pet project Neom, a planned megacity in the desert.
Alenezi refused the order, but the crackdown went ahead anyway, resulting in the death of a vocal critic from the Huwaitat tribe, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti. The order was justified on terrorism grounds, even though there was no inclusion of the protesters in the official terrorism register, according to Alenezi.
Shortly after making such allegations on social media, Alenezi claimed he received a phone call in which he was invited to the Saudi embassy in London to discuss an offer of $5m in exchange for his silence. Alenezi did not go, fearing he could meet the same fate as Khashoggi.
The Saudi embassy did not respond to requests for comment.
At about the same time, Alenezi received death threats from a Twitter account run by a person calling themselves Fahad Bin Sattam. Posts asked the account’s 19,000 followers to hunt Alenezi down in London and provided locations identified from his social media accounts.
The Guardian has seen a video in which Alenezi is forced to leave a restaurant by a man claiming he has received a call from TikTok asking Alenezi to stop posting online. Alenezi said he was then followed from the restaurant.
In the email received from the Met it was confirmed that the Twitter user was operating from within Saudi Arabia. It said: “This places him outside of British legal jurisdiction, and this is a consequence of the global nature of the internet.”
A Met spokesperson confirmed that they had received an allegation of malicious communications but said: “We wouldn’t comment on words that might have been exchanged between an officer and victim/complainant.”
Alenezi said he followed one piece of advice provided by the police, to change hotels every few days, but he continues to feel insecure. He said: “I left to escape the atmosphere of paranoia and fear created by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but I am still being hounded in London. I feel lonely and isolated, and this affected my psychological health greatly.”
Abdullah Alaoudh, Saudi director at the Freedom Initiative, a US-based nonprofit, said: “Col Rabih’s defection marks a unique and rare event in Saudi Arabia within the police and security forces.
“The Saudi government has a long history of transnational repression, of harassing, stalking, silencing, intimidating and even assassinating dissidents abroad – Alenezi is just a recent example.”
