Saudi lawsuit against ‘Maltese’ spymaster dismissed

A United States judge has dismissed a lawsuit against a former top Saudi intelligence official who is now a Maltese citizen, by a Saudi state-owned firm ruling that a rarely used U.S. government intervention to stop the release of classified information prevented the case from proceeding.

The Saudi Arabian government’s hunt for its former spymaster, Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri, is also taking place in Malta, with a request to prevent the sale of a Sliema apartment owned by Al Jabri.

The U.S. decision was a defeat for Saudi Arabian ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS. Jabri effectively received support from the U.S. government, which invoked a state secrets clause to prevent the case from proceeding further.

Jabri is a former major-general, minister of state and long-time adviser to deposed Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia. He has been living in exile in Canada since May 2017, having acquired Maltese citizenship in 2016 through the Individual Investor Programme.

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 January 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.

In the Maltese court case, the Saudi-registered Sakab Saudi Holding Company is trying to stop Jabri and his Cayman Islands company Ten Leaves Management, from selling a Tigné Point apartment.

Sakab, part of a group of 17 companies set up by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, claims Jabri used offshore structures to distribute €6 billion in funds to other commercial entities between 2008 and 2017, funnelled to other members of the Sakab group, allegedly on Jabri’s instructions.

The firms are owned by the Saudi state sovereign wealth fund of which MbS is the chairman. Jabri denies the allegation.

But Sakab is part of a network of front companies used for clandestine security operations with the United States.

But in September, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines took the extraordinary step of intervening in the Massachusetts case, invoking the state secrets privilege to halt the release of classified information deemed harmful to national security, after noting Jabri’s intention to “describe information concerning alleged national security activities.”

Jabri also alleged in a 2020 U.S. lawsuit that Canadian authorities foiled a plot to kill him by a “hit squad” sent by MbS, less than two weeks after the October 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Riyadh denies Jabri’s allegation and MbS’s involvement in Kashoggi’s murder.