WikiLeaks to release 500,000 Saudi diplomatic cables, including paper on 'Bin Laden inheritance'
Giving rare glimpse of kingdom's politics, unverified documents touch on Iranian nuclear talks, Syrian crisis
WikiLeaks is in the process of publishing more than 500,000 Saudi diplomatic documents to the Internet, the transparency website said on Friday, a move that echoes its famous release of US State Department cables in 2010.
WikiLeaks said in a statement that it has already posted roughly 60,000 files. Most of them appear to be in Arabic.
Among the most eye-catching items was a document addressed to the interior and justice ministers notifying them that a son of Osama bin Laden had obtained a certificate from the American embassy in Riyadh “showing death of his father”.
The document, dated only by the day and month of the Islamic calendar, said the son hoped to get it certified by the ministry in order to present it to a court in the Saudi city of Jeddah for inheritance purposes.
There was no immediate way to verify the authenticity of the documents, although WikiLeaks has a long track record of hosting large-scale leaks of government material. Many of the documents carried green letterhead marked “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” or “Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” At least one appeared to be from the Saudi embassy in Washington.
If genuine, the documents would offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the notoriously opaque kingdom.
They might also shed light on Riyadh’s longstanding regional rivalry with Iran, its support for Syrian rebels and Egypt’s military-backed government, and its opposition to an emerging international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear programme.