Ex-Saudi official says Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent hit squad to kill him
- Assassination attempt was foiled by Canadian authorities, Saad al-Jabri says in lawsuit against Saudi royal
- Ex-intelligence official says he was target of so-called ‘Tiger Squad’, which included someone who knew how to clean up crime scenes
A former top-ranking Saudi intelligence official living in exile in Canada alleged in a lawsuit filed in a US court on Thursday that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent a team to kill him in 2018 but the effort was foiled by Canadian authorities.
Saad al-Jabri was a long-time aide to Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The crown prince – known as MBS – ousted Nayef as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup that left him the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, a close US ally.
People with knowledge of the situation said earlier this year that Jabri has access to documents containing sensitive information that MBS fears could be compromising.
In a 107-page lawsuit against MBS and 24 others filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, Jabri said the crown prince “dispatched a hit squad” to Canada in October 2018.
“[A] team of Saudi nationals travelled across the Atlantic Ocean from Saudi Arabia … with the intention of killing Dr Saad,” said the lawsuit, which seeks punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial.