Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1419860
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 OCTOBER 2021 8 NEWS MATTHEW AGIUS THE Saudi Arabian govern- ment's hunt for its former spy- master has arrived in Malta, with a bid to stop the natural- ised Maltese Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri from selling his Tigné Point apartment in Sliema. Jabri is a former major-gener- al, minister of state and long- time adviser to deposed Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia, who has been living in exile in Canada since May 2017. He acquired Maltese citizenship in 2016 through the Individual Investor Programme. This is the latest volley in a bit- ter dispute that has been playing out in courtrooms in the United States and Canada between the former intelligence official and the crown prince. In 2020, Jabri accused crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman in a civil suit in U.S. federal court of sending agents in 2018 to Canada to kill him. In Janu- ary 2021, a group of Saudi state- owned firms alleged in a lawsuit in Canada that Jabri embezzled billions of dollars of state funds while working at the Ministry of Interior. Known by the initials MbS, the crown prince and de factor rule of Saudi Arabia, has tight- ened his grip on power in recent years. Jabri was a long-time aide to another royal, Prince Mo- hammed bin Nayef, whom MbS ousted as heir to the throne in a 2017 palace coup. In the Maltese court case, the Saudi-registered Sakab Saudi Holding Company filed a war- rant of prohibitory injunction against Jabri and his compa- ny Ten Leaves Management, a company registered in the Cay- man Islands, to stop them from transferring the right to use an apartment at Tigné Point, Sliema. The sixth-floor apartment in the luxury development was purchased in 2018. Sakab, part of a group of 17 companies set up by the King- dom of Saudi Arabia, claims Jabri used offshore structures to hide illicit profits to enrich his family, and purchase properties around the world. Jabri is accused of using Sakab as a vehicle to distribute €6 bil- lion in funds to other commer- cial entities between 2008 and 2017, funnelled to other mem- bers of the Sakab group, alleg- edly on Jabri's instructions. The vast majority of the financial transactions were "off the books" and not declared in the official accounts "It is in the hum- ble understanding of the applicants, and this always according to the evidence in hand, that Ten Leaves bought the prop- erties using funds misappropriated through a fraud- ulent scheme as part of Jabri's ef- forts to hide and launder misap- propriated mon- ies," Sakab, which is represnted in Malta by lawyer Louis Cas- sar Pullicino, said. Canadian lawsuit In January 2021, the Saudi accused Jabri that he collud- ed with his former boss, bin Nayef, and received $1.2bn in misappropriated funds, with the former crown price alleg- edly transferring at least $55m to Jabri in illicit payments. The filing came months after the former intelligence officer him- self filed a lawsuit in the Unit- ed States against MBS, alleging that a 50-person team known as the 'Tiger Squad' was sent to kill him in Canada. Jabri claims evidence used to support the allegations was likely obtained through torture. His daughter Hissah al-Mu- zaini, says her husband, Salem al-Muzaini, was detained by Saudi authorities in 2017 and 2018, and also tortured. The affidavit says her husband was questioned about fi- nancial allegations against Jabri and about the com- panies that were allegedly used to commit fraud. In an affidavit, Mu- zaini describes several instances of her hus- band's torture, includ- ing Saudi security hav- ing "whipped him, hit him with iron bars, put him in stress positions, deprived him of food, electrocuted him, and humiliated him by making him crawl on the floor and bark like a dog." In another affidavit, Jabri defended himself against the fraud alle- gations, saying he was paid a total of $385m between 2008 and 2017 for his work for the kingdom. "These payments must be viewed in the context of the practice of customary Royal patronage in the Saudi government, where the absolute monarch is also the head of state and public of- ficials are generously rewarded for their service and loyalty, in amounts that significantly ex- ceed the official public salaries." US lawsuit A rare U.S. Justice Department filing in a Massachusetts court in April noted Jabri's intention to "describe information con- cerning alleged national securi- ty activities." The American government is considering whether it will participate in the action in this action, saying it was prepared to "provide further information" to the court in secret. Sakab was part of a network of front companies to provide cov- er for clandestine security oper- ations with the United States. In order to prove his innocence, Jabri said the court would need to probe Sakab's finances, in- cluding how they were used to "finance sensitive programmes" operated in partnership with the CIA, the U.S. National Se- curity Agency and the U.S. De- fense Department. Jabri worked directly with the CIA and the White House, for- mer CIA official Philip Mudd wrote in a U.S. court affidavit. "When the United States had actionable intelligence or tac- tical information, we gave it to Dr. Saad." magius@mediatoday.com.mt Saudi hunt for exiled spymaster comes to Malta Top: former Saudi spymaster Saad Al Jabri, a naturalised Maltese citizen, carries a lot of secrets with him, having worked directly with the CIA and the FBI. He claims Saudi rule Mohammed bin Salman, or MbS, tried to have him killed by sending his agents to Canada in 2018